Uncertainty in perceptual decision-making

Whether we are deciding about Covid-related restrictions, estimating a ball’s trajectory when playing tennis, or interpreting radiological images – most any choice we make is based on uncertain evidence. How do we infer that information is more or less reliable when making these decisions? How does the brain represent knowledge of this uncertainty? In this talk, I will present recent neuroimaging data combined with novel analysis tools to address these questions. Our results indicate that sensory uncertainty can reliably be estimated from the human visual cortex on a trial-by-trial basis, and moreover that observers appear to rely on this uncertainty when making perceptual decisions.