Much of what we know about how a brain makes decisions comes from studying monkeys watching dots. In a task known as a random-dot-motion task, a cloud of flickering specks drifts weakly in one direction while the subject tries to determine whetherâand in which directionâ itâs moving. The task has shown that in the primate neocortex, neurons gather visual evidence over time, with their firing rates climbing until they cross a threshold, when the animal commits to a decision.
But avian brains donât have a neocortex, so it wasnât obvious how they made similar decisions.
âThis was the big question,â said Andreas Nieder, a neurobiologist at the University of TĂźbingen. âHow [would] a differently organized avian brain encode decisions?â