Humans can make abstract choices independent of motor actions. However, in laboratory tasks, choices are typically reported with an associated action. Consequentially, knowledge about the neural representation of abstract choices is sparse, and choices are often thought to evolve as motor intentions. Here, we show that in the human brain, perceptual choices are represented in an abstract, motor-independent manner, even when they are directly linked to an action. We measured MEG signals while participants made choices with known or unknown motor response mapping. Using multivariate decoding, we quantified stimulus, perceptual choice, and motor response information with distinct cortical distributions. Choice representations were invariant to whether the response mapping was known during stimulus presentation, and they occupied a distinct representational space from motor signals. As expected from an internal decision variable, they were informed by the stimuli, and their strength predicted decision confidence and accuracy. Our results demonstrate abstract neural choice signals that generalize to action-linked decisions, suggesting a general role of an abstract choice stage in human decision-making.
Copyright: © 2023 Sandhaeger et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.