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QUESTION-062: Within a single decision, does a goal govern which response becomes effective by setting the terms of the competition among responses (threshold, starting point, inhibition) rather than by selecting one?

2 min read

Properties5
StatusOpen
Tagsbehavioral-integration, agency, cognition
Linewill-organization
RefinesQUESTION-015 — Given an independently warranted agent with several available action-generating regimes, what maintained relations govern which of them becomes practically effective?
BearingTHEORY-059 — The readiness potential does not show that a neural decision to act precedes awareness of the urge to act, THEORY-061 — In evidence-accumulation tasks, goals and instructions act on a decision by setting the parameters of the accumulation (drift, starting point or baseline, and threshold), not by specifying the response, and this holds for when to act as well as for which, THEORY-068 — In a two-alternative choice made by two competing leaky accumulators, the decision is optimal only when leak and mutual inhibition balance, so that the network integrates the difference of the evidence without loss; imbalance bounds accuracy at any fixed time and weights early or late evidence

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The question

QUESTION-015 counts an answer when an organizational relation, intervened on while the competing regimes are held fixed, changes which one becomes effective. Accumulator models of choice give that criterion a precise case. The evidence for each response is the competing content. Threshold, starting point, leak and mutual inhibition are relations among the responses. This question asks whether goals act only through those relations at this scale, and whether that holds for when an action happens as well as for which action.

Why the record needs it

CLAIM-027 says efficacy depends on maintained relations that cannot be reduced to the contents of the competing regimes. CLAIM-122 says that changing the conditions of efficacy changes behaviour while preferences stay fixed. Both rest on organizational cases such as Northstar and on the reluctant writer. A decision-scale case with measured parameters would show the same structure through a named mechanism. It would also bear on QUESTION-054: does anything set the parameters, or is the competition itself the governance?

What the record holds

  • THEORY-061: goals act “by setting the parameters of the accumulation … not by specifying the response”. Instructions move boundary separation, and the stimulus moves drift. Limit: it says nothing about who sets the parameters.
  • THEORY-068: with inputs fixed, the balance of leak and inhibition alone decides which evidence counts and how accurate the choice is. Limit: it treats a model, and two alternatives only.
  • THEORY-059: the decision to move “now” is a noise-driven threshold crossing. The goal only raised the baseline. Limit: the task was a single movement with nothing at stake.

What would answer it

A study that changes a goal while holding the evidence fixed and finds that only relational parameters move. Or a case where an instruction changes drift, which would show the goal acting on content. In either case the study should go beyond the speeded two-choice tasks the models fit.

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