Fig. 3: Neuronal modulation of SC neurons with changes in behavioral d’ and perceptual decision criterion.

a Trial-averaged PSTHs of an example visuo-motor SC neuron when the monkey’s behavioral d’ and decision criterion at the neuron’s RF location were independently controlled relative to the stimulus at the opposite hemifield (Fig. 2). Spike rates are aligned to the onsets of sample stimuli, saccade targets, go-cue, and the saccade (top). Error bars, ± 1 SEM. b PSTHs are similar to those in (a), except for the population of visuo-motor neurons when one of the visual sample stimuli was located within the neuron’s RF (n = 105/165). c, d Similar to (a, b), except for an example and population of visual neurons in the SC (n = 58/88). e,f Spike rate modulation of SC neurons with changes in behavioral d’ (Δbeh d’) and decision criterion (Δc). Bottom left, Population distribution of neuronal d’ quantifying modulation as a function of Δbeh d’ and Δc for visuo-motor (e) and visual neurons (f). Top & right, marginal distributions of neuronal d’ for Δc (top) and Δbeh d’ (right). Triangles represent population means. g, h Decoding accuracies for behavioral d’ (top) and decision criterion (bottom) from spike counts using a linear classifier based on support vector machine, averaged across individual visuo-motor (g) and visual (h) neurons, as shown in (b) and (d). Dashed lines, 95% confidence intervals based on shuffled trials. Shaded error bars, ± 1 SEM.