Deliberation is a controllable process governed by desirability and cognitive effort

Abstract Humans spend a lifetime making decisions based on incoming sensory information and goals. Prominent theories of perceptual decision-making have described the components of deliber-ation process, yet they lack a unifying principle that governs how the nervous system tunes the deliberation process across multiple contexts. Desirability (reward) and effort (energy) are major determinants in governing a broad range of human and animal behaviour, such as for-aging, walking, and decisions. Here we develop a theory where desirability and cognitive effort tune the control gains that govern deliberation. Several hallmark features of decision behaviour simply emerge from the model, with the deliberation process closely resembling low-dimensional neural dynamics. We also predict and provide a novel mechanistic explanation for choking-under-pressure, where extremely large rewards lead to performance deficits. Our principled framework explains both behavioural and neural phenomena while providing a path to unify disparate fields.