Year: 2026
Type: preprint
Abstract: Even professional athletes sometimes fail to perform when it matters most. This phenomenon, known as choking under pressure, has been observed in a variety of motor and cognitive tasks. Can inordinately large rewards influence even sensory processing, and if so, what might be its neural basis? To probe this, we studied rhesus monkeys performing a challenging color change detection task and recorded from populations of neurons in visual area V4. We found that monkeys underperformed when offered rare "jackpot" rewards and uncovered associated detrimental alterations in V4 population activity. These findings were consistent with misallocated spatial attention, providing a potential neural basis for perceptual choking under pressure.
Language: English
Subfield: Cognitive Neuroscience
Field: Neuroscience
Domain: Life Sciences
Open Access status: green
Awards: Collaborative Research: NCS-FR: Volitional Control of Internal Cognitive States, Collaborative Research: NCS-FR: Volitional control of internal cognitive states, CRCNS: Dynamical Constraints on Neural Population Activity, Training Program in Big Data Systems Neuroscience, Integrative Training in Neural Interfacing, Dissecting roles of inputs and recurrent connectivity in motor cortex, Neural Mechanisms of Motivated Movement
OpenAlex ID: W7221023341