Evidence map›Paper›PMID 29773755›Full record

ArticleThe Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience2018

Expectations Do Not Alter Early Sensory Processing during Perceptual Decision-Making.

Nuttida Rungratsameetaweemana, Sirawaj Itthipuripat, Annalisa Salazar, John T Serences

Abstract read
In one paragraph

Article in The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 54 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
54citing papers in PubMed
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

54 citing papers in PubMed.

  1. Article
  2. Effort expectation and strategic cue use in visual search.Cognitive, affective & behavioral neuroscience · 2026
    Article
  3. Effects of Expectation, Attention, and NMDA Receptor Blockade on Feedforward and Feedback Processing.The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience · 2026
    Article
  4. The Ventral Attention Network Mediates Attentional Reorienting to Cross-Modal Expectancy Violations: Evidence from EEG and fMRI.The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience · 2026
    Article
  5. Article
  6. Article
  7. Emergent neuronal mechanisms mediating covert attention in convolutional neural networks.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2025
    Article
  8. Article
  9. Article
  10. Target Selection Signals Causally Influence Human Perceptual Decision-Making.The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience · 2025
    Article
  11. Article
  12. Article
  13. Article
  14. Article
  15. Article
  16. Recent Visual Experience Reshapes V4 Neuronal Activity and Improves Perceptual Performance.The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience · 2024
    Article
  17. Conflicting Sensory Information Sharpens the Neural Representations of Early Selective Visuospatial Attention.The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience · 2024
    Article
  18. Article
  19. Article
  20. Article
4 · The record

Corrections and comments

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

4 authors.

Nuttida RungratsameetaweemanaNeurosciences Graduate Program, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, California 92093-0109, nrungrat@ucsd.edu jserences@ucsd.edu.ORCID 0000-0002-4599-450X
Sirawaj ItthipuripatNeurosciences Graduate Program, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, California 92093-0109.ORCID 0000-0001-9302-0964
Annalisa SalazarDepartment of Psychology, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, California 92093-0109, and.
John T SerencesNeurosciences Graduate Program, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, California 92093-0109, nrungrat@ucsd.edu jserences@ucsd.edu.ORCID 0000-0002-8551-5147

Funding

Adaptive population codes for flexible visually-guided behaviorsR01EY025872 · NEI · UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN DIEGO · PI John T Serences · 2016 to 2026
$4.5M
Howard Hughes Medical InstituteNEI NIH HHS R01 EY025872
6 · The paper itself

Abstract

Two factors play important roles in shaping perception: the allocation of selective attention to behaviorally relevant sensory features, and prior expectations about regularities in the environment. Signal detection theory proposes distinct roles of attention and expectation on decision-making such that attention modulates early sensory processing, whereas expectation influences the selection and execution of motor responses. Challenging this classic framework, recent studies suggest that expectations about sensory regularities enhance the encoding and accumulation of sensory evidence during decision-making. However, it is possible, that these findings reflect well documented attentional modulations in visual cortex. Here, we tested this framework in a group of male and female human participants by examining how expectations about stimulus features (orientation and color) and expectations about motor responses impacted electroencephalography (EEG) markers of early sensory processing and the accumulation of sensory evidence during decision-making (the early visual negative potential and the centro-parietal positive potential, respectively). We first demonstrate that these markers are sensitive to changes in the amount of sensory evidence in the display. Then we show, counter to recent findings, that neither marker is modulated by either feature or motor expectations, despite a robust effect of expectations on behavior. Instead, violating expectations about likely sensory features and motor responses impacts posterior alpha and frontal theta oscillations, signals thought to index overall processing time and cognitive conflict. These findings are inconsistent with recent theoretical accounts and suggest instead that expectations primarily influence decisions by modulating post-perceptual stages of information processing.

Indexed as

AttentionBrainDecision MakingDiscrimination, PsychologicalFemaleHumansMaleMotivationPhotic StimulationVisual PerceptionYoung Adultcognitive controldecision-makingelectroencephalography (EEG)expectationsensory modulation

Identifiers

PMID29773755
PMCPMC8174137

What OpenQuestion holds

Textmetadata
Read underepoch 390

Registered trials

None linked

Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.