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Poster Session B: Wednesday, August 13, 1:00 – 4:00 pm, de Brug & E‑Hall

Dissociable Effects of Uncertainty in Perceptual and Cognitive Control

Julian Q. Kosciessa¹, Martin Wimmers, Sophie Krijgsman, Lennart Verhagen; ¹Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour

Presenter: Julian Q. Kosciessa

The ability to manage uncertainty is a hallmark of flexible control. But uncertainty is not a unitary construct: it arises from various sources that challenge diverse processing domains – from ambiguous perceptual inputs to conflicting cues about task-relevant features. To disentangle uncertainty sources in perceptual and cognitive control, we independently manipulated perceptual uncertainty (relative choice evidence) and task uncertainty (uncertainty about relevant feature sets) in a dynamic perceptual decision task. Across three experiments, we observed a double dissociation in behavioral effects: perceptual uncertainty reduced accuracy, while task uncertainty primarily slowed response times. Conceptually replicating and extending prior work, functional MRI revealed robust engagement of a fronto-thalamic network in response to task, but not perceptual, uncertainty. We propose that thalamocortical circuits track uncertainty in a differentiated fashion to exert domain-specific control. By establishing robust and dissociable effects, this work provides a foundation for understanding how the human brain manages diverse uncertainties.

Topic Area: Predictive Processing & Cognitive Control

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