Can someone explain the "hierarchical decision process"? If it after K repeats of a stimuli it starts to do Y rather than X, this only means that there is a st

Can someone explain the "hierarchical decision process"? If it after K repeats of a stimuli it starts to do Y rather than X, this only means that there is a state variable that gets over a threshold. A capacitor so to say. Or would we be able to say the same of a circuit with a cap?