It can train memory units to integrate evidence for probabilistic decision making , to memorize analog values as graded levels of persistent activity but also to store categories with almost binary responses in a delayed match-to-category task.

Here we have shown that interactions between synaptic tags and neuromodulatory signals can explain how neurons in ‘multiple-demand’ association areas acquire mnemonic signals for apparently disparate tasks that require working memory, categorization or decision making .

The model is simple, yet is able to learn a wide range of difficult tasks requiring nonlinear sensory-motor transformations, decision making , categorization, and working memory.

In the categorization task, units became sensitive to category boundaries and in the decision making task, units integrated sensory evidence with stronger weights for the more reliable inputs.

However, if the animals learn a visual categorization task, persistent activity of LIP cells becomes tuned to the boundary between categories [4] whereas the neurons integrate probabilistic evidence if the task is sensory decision making [5].

Probabilistic decision making task

Persistent activity in area LIP has also been related to perceptual decision making, because LIP neurons integrate sensory information over time in decision making tasks [43].

Decision making has been studied with a wide array of tasks.

Decision making has been studied with a wide array of tasks.

Many interesting decision making problems, however, require consideration of how current choices will affect the future [1—7].

Explore-exploit tradeoffs exist in any real-world decision making context where one has to choose between continuing to exploit a known option, for example a familiar restaurant, vs. exploring an unknown or novel restaurant.

Decision making is a vital component of human and animal behavior that involves selecting between alternative options and generating actions to implement the choices.

Classical psychological theories posit that decision making takes place within frontal areas and is a separate process from perception and action.

A classic psychological theory, known as “goods-based decision making”, posits that decision making is a distinct cognitive function from perception and action and that it entails assigning values to the available goods [1—5].