MURAL - Maynooth University Research Archive Library



    Dissociable encoding of evolving beliefs and momentary belief updates in distinct neural decision signals


    Parés-Pujolràs, Elisabet, Kelly, Simon P. and Murphy, Peter R. (2025) Dissociable encoding of evolving beliefs and momentary belief updates in distinct neural decision signals. Nature Communications, 16 (1). ISSN 2041-1723

    Abstract

    Making accurate decisions in noisy environments requires integrating evidence over time. Studies of simple perceptual decisions in static environments have identified two human neurophysiological signals that evolve with similar integration dynamics, with one - the centroparietal positivity - appearing to compute the running integral and continuously feed it to the other - motor beta lateralisation. However, it remains unknown whether and how these signals serve more distinct functional roles in more complex scenarios. Here, we use a volatile expanded judgement task that dissociates raw sensory information, belief updates, and the evolving belief itself. We find that motor beta lateralisation traces the evolving belief across stimuli, while the centroparietal positivity locally encodes the belief updates associated with each individual stimulus. These results suggest a flexible computational hierarchy where context-dependent belief updates can be computed sample-by-sample at an intermediate processing level to modify downstream belief representations for protracted decisions about discrete stimuli.
    Item Type: Article
    Keywords: Dissociable encoding; evolving beliefs; momentary belief updates; distinct neural decision signals;
    Academic Unit: Faculty of Science and Engineering > Psychology
    Item ID: 21417
    Identification Number: 10.1038/s41467-025-58861-9
    Depositing User: Dr Peter Murphy
    Date Deposited: 13 Apr 2026 13:41
    Journal or Publication Title: Nature Communications
    Publisher: Nature Publshing Group
    Refereed: Yes
    Related URLs:
    Use Licence: This item is available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial Share Alike Licence (CC BY-NC-SA). Details of this licence are available here

    Downloads

    Downloads per month over past year

    Origin of downloads

    Altmetric Badge

    Repository Staff Only (login required)

    Item control page
    Item control page