Discovery and shaping of decision strategies using adversarial stimuli in rats

Zhang, Anqi, Zador, Anthony M (September 2025) Discovery and shaping of decision strategies using adversarial stimuli in rats. bioRxiv. ISSN 2692-8205 (Submitted)

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Abstract

Animals typically learn to solve decision tasks in the laboratory through trial and error, rather than through explicit instruction of decision rules. The decision rule used by the animal may be difficult to read out directly from choice or accuracy data, when multiple decision rules are possible given the task design. Here, we demonstrate that in rats performing a visual decision task, probe stimuli can be used to gain information about decision strategy, and in our task revealed variation in the decision strategies used across rats. Further, we find that in a more general version of this task, rats use varying decision strategies that differ from the optimal ideal observer strategy, but respond to manipulations of the stimulus distribution by adjusting their behavioral strategy. Therefore, we show that informative probe stimuli can be used in both training and testing to confirm and shape behavioral strategy in a perceptual decision task.

Item Type:	Paper
Subjects:	organism description > animal organism description > animal behavior organism description > animal behavior > decision making organism description > animal > mammal organism description > animal > mammal > rodent > rat organism description > animal > mammal > rodent > rat organism description > animal > mammal > rodent
CSHL Authors:	Zador, Anthony M. Zhang, Anqi
Communities:	CSHL labs > Zador lab School of Biological Sciences > Publications
SWORD Depositor:	CSHL Elements
Depositing User:	CSHL Elements
Date:	11 September 2025
Date Deposited:	22 Sep 2025 18:40
Last Modified:	22 Sep 2025 18:40
PMCID:	PMC12439966
Related URLs:	Publisher
URI:	https://repository.cshl.edu/id/eprint/41967

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