Determine the biological determinants of animal decision spectra

Determine what sets the harmonic spectrum of an animal’s orienting decisions and characterize how its harmonic components change with behavioral state, learning, and development.

Background

The paper develops harmonic spectroscopy as a method for measuring decision spectra but does not explain why different species or preparations exhibit their particular harmonic coefficients. It explicitly identifies the determinants of the spectrum and its changes across state, learning, and development as unresolved experimental questions.

References

This opens more questions than it settles: what sets a species' spectrum; how its lines shift with state, learning and development; how far into the nervous system the same selection rules reach. All three are now open to experiment.

— Selection rules for the harmonic spectroscopy of animal decisions  (2610.00990 - Salahshour, 1 Oct 2026) in Conclusion