Revealing subthreshold motor contributions to perceptual confidence

Neuroscience of Consciousness
Thibault GajdosKaren Davranche

Abstract

Established models of perceptual metacognition, the ability to evaluate our perceptual judgements, posit that perceptual confidence depends on the strength or quality of feedforward sensory evidence. However, alternative theoretical accounts suggest the entire perception-action cycle, and not only variation in sensory evidence, is monitored when evaluating confidence in one's percepts. Such models lead to the counterintuitive prediction that perceptual confidence should be directly modulated by features of motor output. To evaluate this proposal here we recorded electromyographic (EMG) activity of motor effectors while subjects performed a near-threshold perceptual discrimination task and reported their confidence in each response in a pre-registered experiment. A subset of trials exhibited subthreshold EMG activity in response effectors before a decision was made. Strikingly, trial-by-trial analysis showed that confidence, but not accuracy, was significantly higher on trials with subthreshold motor activation. These findings support a hypothesis that preparatory motor activity, or a related latent variable, impacts upon confidence over and above performance, consistent with models in which perceptual metacognition integrates i...Continue Reading

References

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Citations

Apr 3, 2020·Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America·Michael PereiraJosé Del R Millán
Sep 29, 2020·Frontiers in Psychology·Borysław PaulewiczMarcin Koculak
Jan 15, 2021·Scientific Reports·Giovanni PezzuloLudovic Saint-Bauzel
Nov 13, 2020·Frontiers in Neuroscience·Justyna HobotMichał Wierzchoń
Nov 21, 2020·Trends in Cognitive Sciences·Medha Shekhar, Dobromir Rahnev

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Methods Mentioned

BETA
SMA

Software Mentioned

lmer4
Brms
simR
Open
Psychopy
metaSDT
R
lmerTest

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