The DOI matches its Crossref record; 53 of the 53 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
The classic P300 encodes a build‐to‐threshold decision variable
Open accessAbstract
The P300 component of the human event‐related potential has been the subject of intensive experimental investigation across a five‐decade period, owing to its apparent relevance to a wide range of cognitive functions and its sensitivity to numerous brain disorders, yet its exact contribution to cognition remains unresolved. Here, we carry out key analyses of the P300 elicited by transient auditory and visual targets to examine its potential role as a ‘decision variable’ signal that accumulates evidence to a decision bound. Consistent with the latter, we find that the P300 reaches a stereotyped amplitude immediately prior to response execution and that its rate of rise scales with target detection difficulty and accounts for trial‐to‐trial variance in RT . Computational simulations of an accumulation‐to‐bound decision process faithfully captured P300 dynamics when its parameters were set by model fits to the RT distributions. Thus, where the dominant explanatory accounts have conceived of the P300 as a unitary neural event, our data reveal it to be a dynamically evolving neural signature of decision formation. These findings place the P300 at the heart of a mechanistically principled framework for understanding decision‐making in both the typical and atypical human brain.
Overview
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Verification
Claims the paper makes
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
In the citing paper
“This suggests that the P3 may encode motivationally significant events, which, in the present study, were the saliently colored/ethnic Black hands during SRC processing, potentially contributing to a dynamic decision process of linking perception to action31,42–45”
From Event-related potentials of automatic imitation are modulated by ethnicity during stimulus processing, but not during motor execution (2018) · cites this paper as [42]
In the citing paper
“It has been suggested that the role of the P3 component lies in bridging stimulus perception and response execution31,44 in a dynamically evolving decision process, linking sensory encoding of stimulus perception to the preparation of action42,43,45, and/or response control44.”
From Event-related potentials of automatic imitation are modulated by ethnicity during stimulus processing, but not during motor execution (2018) · cites this paper as [42]
In the citing paper
“This has been argued to be in line with the P3 component acting as an intermediate link on the dynamic formation of decision from stimulus encoding to motor preparation42.”
From Event-related potentials of automatic imitation are modulated by ethnicity during stimulus processing, but not during motor execution (2018) · cites this paper as [42]
Citations
Cites
Delorme, A., & Makeig, S. (2004) · Journal of Neuroscience Methods · doi:10.1016/j.jneumeth.2003.10.009 · Cited by 24,371
Updating P300: An integrative theory of P3a and P3b
Polich, J. (2007) · Clinical Neurophysiology · doi:10.1016/j.clinph.2007.04.019 · Cited by 7,919
The Neural Basis of Decision Making
Gold, J. I., & Shadlen, M. N. (2007) · Annual Review of Neuroscience · doi:10.1146/annurev.neuro.29.051605.113038 · Cited by 3,764
Is the P300 component a manifestation of context updating?
Donchin, E., & Coles, M. G. H. (1988) · Behavioral and Brain Sciences · doi:10.1017/s0140525x00058027 · Cited by 3,585
Evoked-potential correlates of stimulus uncertainty
Sutton, S., Braren, M., Zubin, J., & John, E. R. (1965) · Science · doi:10.1126/science.150.3700.1187 · Cited by 3,061
The Diffusion Decision Model: Theory and Data for Two-Choice Decision Tasks
Ratcliff, R., & McKoon, G. (2008) · Neural Computation · doi:10.1162/neco.2008.12-06-420 · Cited by 3,059
On the utility of P3 amplitude as a measure of processing capacity
Kok, A. (2001) · Psychophysiology · doi:10.1017/s0048577201990559 · Cited by 1,766
Augmenting mental chronometry: The P300 as a measure of stimulus evaluation time
Kutas, M., McCarthy, G., & Donchin, E. (1977) · Science · doi:10.1126/science.887923 · Cited by 1,714
Decision making, the P3, and the locus coeruleus–norepinephrine system
Nieuwenhuis, S., Aston-Jones, G., & Cohen, J. D. (2005) · Psychological Bulletin · doi:10.1037/0033-2909.131.4.510 · Cited by 1,678
On Quantifying Surprise: The Variation of Event‐Related Potentials With Subjective Probability
Duncan‐Johnson, C. C., & Donchin, E. (1977) · Psychophysiology · doi:10.1111/j.1469-8986.1977.tb01312.x · Cited by 1,235
Cited by
Sorted by citations
Perceptual Decision Making in Rodents, Monkeys, and Humans
Hanks, T. D., & Summerfield, C. (2017) · Neuron · doi:10.1016/j.neuron.2016.12.003 · Cited by 409
Verleger, R. (2020) · Psychophysiology · doi:10.1111/psyp.13542 · Cited by 207
Pisauro, M. A., Fouragnan, E. F., Retzler, C., & Philiastides, M. G. (2017) · Nature Communications · doi:10.1038/ncomms15808 · Cited by 229
Neural evidence accumulation persists after choice to inform metacognitive judgments
Murphy, P. R., Robertson, I. H., Harty, S., & O'Connell, R. G. (2015) · eLife · doi:10.7554/elife.11946 · Cited by 170
Self-citationThe P3b and P600(s): Positive contributions to language comprehension
Leckey, M., & Federmeier, K. D. (2020) · Psychophysiology · doi:10.1111/psyp.13351 · Cited by 160
Metadata
- Authors
- Twomey, D. M., Murphy, P. R., Kelly, S. P., & O'Connell, R. G.
- Affiliations
- Trinity College Dublin (IE)
- Leiden University (NL)
- City College of New York (US)
- Trinity College Institute of Neuroscience, Lloyd Building Trinity College Dublin Dublin 2 Ireland
- ORCID
- Kelly, Simon P.
- Venue
- European Journal of Neuroscience
- Publisher
- Wiley
- Published
- 2015-05-28
- Volume
- 42
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 1636-1643
- ISSN
- 0953-816X (ISSN-L)
- 1460-9568
- OpenAlex
- W1978718038
- Cited by
- 376
- References
- 53
- Citations by year
- 2026: 38 · 2025: 22 · 2024: 35 · 2023: 40 · 2022: 34 · 2021: 34 · 2020: 40 · 2019: 36 · 2018: 33 · 2017: 27 · 2016: 33 · 2015: 4
- FWCI
- 19.22
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- zenodo.org
- Licence
- Locations
- European Journal of Neuroscience (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Leiden Repository (Leiden University) (submittedVersion)
- Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
- Data Archiving and Networked Services (DANS) (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- National Science Foundation (BCS- 1358955)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Neural and Behavioral Psychology Studies
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Neural dynamics and brain function
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › EEG and Brain-Computer Interfaces
- Keywords
- P300, event-related potentials, decision variables, evidence accumulation, decision-making, response execution, reaction time variability, computational modeling
- MeSH terms
- Adult, Auditory Perception, Brain, Computer Simulation, Decision Making, Evoked Potentials, Auditory, Evoked Potentials, Visual, Female, Humans, Male, Models, Neurological, Reaction Time, Visual Perception, Event-Related Potentials, P300, Young Adult
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
