Eyes on the prize: a neural basis of perceptual choking under pressure

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.