Rhythmic sampling of multiple decision alternatives in the human brain

Abstract

SummaryDuring decision-making attention plays a pivotal role by guiding information sampling between alternatives. We need to optimally encode different options and compare between them. So far the role of attention in decision-making has only been addressed through saccadic displacements. However, looking is not always attending and attending not always looking. The influence of covert attention on decision-making is poorly understood. Here, we combined a three-alternative perceptual choice task with magnetoencephalography (MEG) recordings to chart covert attention during decision-formation. We found that rhythmic attentional sampling is a neurophysiological mechanism that can temporally disentangle the conflict between focusing and reorienting attention in decision-making. Embedded within an 11Hz oscillation focused processing and reorienting appeared at the peak and trough of the attention oscillation. Reorienting further intrinsically reset the oscillation and covert attention was dissociable from oculomotor activity. We thus propose that (covert) rhythmic sampling is a general cognitive mechanism harnessed to orchestrate flexible information processing in multi-alternative decisions.Highlights‐Assessing covert attention in multi-alternative decision-making with magnetoencephalography (MEG)‐Rhythmic sampling as mechanism orchestrating attention between alternatives‐Focused information sampling alternates with attention switching between decision alternatives‐Covert attention allocation dissociates from oculomotor activity