Confirmation bias through selective overweighting of choice-consistent evidence, Current Biology, 28, 1-8 (2018). By Bharath Chandra Talluri & Tobias Donner. Confirmation bias is the tendency to interpret new information such that it agrees with one’s pre-existing beliefs. This cognitive bias is
New paper out in Scientific Reports: Task-evoked pupil responses reflect internal belief states
Task-evoked pupil responses reflect internal belief states, Scientific Reports (2018) By Olympia Colizoli, Jan Willem de Gee, Anne E. Urai & Tobias Donner Pupil diameter is a reliable marker of central arousal states and neuromodulatory responses. The pupil dilates whenever
New paper out in J Neuroscience: Amplification and Suppression of Distinct Brain-wide Activity Patterns by Catecholamines
By Ruud van den Brink & Tobias Donner. A class of neurotransmitters known as catecholamines (norepinephrine and dopamine) play an important modulatory role in brain function. These catecholamines are synthesised by neurons clustered in small nuclei of the brainstem, which
New paper out in J Neuroscience: Surprise About Sensory Event Timing Drives Cortical Transients in the Beta Frequency Band
By Thomas Meindertsma & Tobias Donner. The brain continuously tracks the statistical structure of the environment to anticipate behaviorally relevant events. Deviations from such predictions cause surprise, a violation of the agent’s expectation about an event, which might be indicative
New paper published in PLoS Biology: Catecholamines alter the intrinsic variability of cortical population activity and perception
By Thomas Pfeffer and Tobias Donner. The catecholaminergic neurotransmitters noradrenaline and dopamine are important regulators of brain state, and their function is impaired in several psychiatric disorders. An influential account posits that noradrenaline renders inference and decision-making more variable (exploratory)
New paper published in J Neuroscience: Multiple transient signals in human visual cortex associated with an elementary decision
By Thomas Meindertsma and Tobias Donner. Even the most elementary perceptual decisions result from complex cascades of neural computations in the brain. Such elementary decisions entail responding to simple patterns of light on the retina with arbitrarily mapped motor act. Previous research has shown
New paper published in eLife: Dynamic modulation of decision biases by brainstem arousal systems.
By Jan Willem de Gee and Tobias Donner. When asked to make repeated decisions we will often choose differently each time even when we are given the same information to inform our choice. A stock trader, for example, will typically be
New paper published in Nature Communications: Pupil dilation reflects decision uncertainty and alters choice patterns
By Anne Urai and Tobias Donner. The first paper of Anne’s PhD is now out! In this project, we investigated the relationship between pupil dilation, decision uncertainty and across-trial patterns of decisions. When making decisions about the world, each choice is