Temporal Processing during Decision Making under Uncertainty.

Abstract

Time perception and decision-making are interrelated processes that are critical to much of human and animal behavior. Although the behavioral importance of this link between the processes has been established, the neural underpinnings of temporal decision-making are unclear. The current study leverages human intracranial electro-physiology to investigate the neural contribution of temporal processing to decision-making under risk. To probe temporal decision-making, we use a version of the Balloon Analogue Risk Task, in which participants inflate virtual balloons with the goal of reaching maximal balloon size but stopping inflation before the balloon pops. Points are awarded based on inflation duration of successful trials, such that points awarded are linearly related to balloon size. By decoding temporal features of the task on a trial-by-trial basis, we find neural representations of time during balloon inflation. Specifically, we find that both medial and lateral temporal regions of the brain encode the majority of this time-related signal. Importantly, we can decode the progression of time leading up to the outcome of a successful decision (pressing a button to stop inflation before the balloon pops). This encoding of time depends on an active decision to end the trial: we cannot decode time during passive observation of balloon inflation to a known maximal size. To validate these results further, we use a temporal convolution network to predict participants response (i.e., time of button press) based on the brain activity leading up to the response. We find that we can predict the moment of response with high accuracy and temporal resolution. The model predicts the timing of successful decisions but not the timing of balloon pops. Together, these findings reveal neural representations that encode the progression of time, specifically in relation to an active decision.