RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Information seeking and simulation: Roles of attention in guiding a goal-directed behavior
JF bioRxiv
FD Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
SP 104091
DO 10.1101/104091
A1 Rei Akaishi
A1 Eiji Hoshi
YR 2017
UL http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2017/01/29/104091.abstract
AB We usually actively seek out the information we need. However, it is still debated whether information seeking in decision situation is a purposeful behavior or a random process. We investigated this issue using the decision task involving multiple goal-directed event sequences, in which a contextual cue specifies an associated target and touch to the target delivers the reward. We found that the gaze followed the sequence of contextual cue to the associated target, which was eventually chosen. This fixation sequence from contextual cue to the associated target could be observed even when there were multiple goals and when the focus was shifted from one goal to another. To causally investigate the effects of sequential simulation, we directly manipulated the processing of the contextual cues and found its influence on the final choice of target. Furthermore, past episodes of the sequences influenced both final choices of targets and initial gaze to contextual cues. We interpret the results as suggesting that the internal process of simulating goal-directed event sequence drives information-seeking behavior such as attention/gaze in decision situations.