A metacognitive illusion in monkeys.
Ontology highlight
ABSTRACT:
SUBMITTER: Ferrigno S
PROVIDER: S-EPMC5597844 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Sep
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
Publications
A metacognitive illusion in monkeys.
Ferrigno Stephen S Kornell Nate N Cantlon Jessica F JF
Proceedings. Biological sciences 20170901 1862
Like humans, monkeys can make accurate judgements about their own memory by reporting their confidence during cognitive tasks. Some have suggested that animals use associative learning to make accurate confidence judgements, while others have suggested animals directly access and estimate the strength of their memories. Here we test a third, non-exclusive possibility: perhaps monkeys, like humans, base metacognitive inferences on heuristic cues. Humans are known to use cues like perceptual fluen ...[more]
Similar Datasets
Project description:Transmission of neural signals in the brain takes time due to the slow biological mechanisms that mediate it. During such delays, the position of moving objects can change substantially. The brain could use statistical regularities in the natural world to compensate neural delays and represent moving stimuli closer to real time. This possibility has been explored in the context of the flash lag illusion, where a briefly flashed stimulus in alignment with a moving one appears to lag behind the moving stimulus. Despite numerous psychophysical studies, the neural mechanisms underlying the flash lag illusion remain poorly understood, partly because it has never been studied electrophysiologically in behaving animals. Macaques are a prime model for such studies, but it is unknown if they perceive the illusion. By training monkeys to report their percepts unbiased by reward, we show that they indeed perceive the illusion qualitatively similar to humans. Importantly, the magnitude of the illusion is smaller in monkeys than in humans, but it increases linearly with the speed of the moving stimulus in both species. These results provide further evidence for the similarity of sensory information processing in macaques and humans and pave the way for detailed neurophysiological investigations of the flash lag illusion in behaving macaques.
| S-EPMC3602542 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Studying visual illusions is critical to understanding typical visual perception. We investigated whether rhesus monkeys (Macaca mulatta) and capuchin monkeys (Cebus apella) perceived the Delboeuf illusion in a similar manner as human adults (Homo sapiens). To test this, in Experiment 1, we presented monkeys and humans with a relative discrimination task that required subjects to choose the larger of 2 central dots that were sometimes encircled by concentric rings. As predicted, humans demonstrated evidence of the Delboeuf illusion, overestimating central dots when small rings surrounded them and underestimating the size of central dots when large rings surrounded them. However, monkeys did not show evidence of the illusion. To rule out an alternate explanation, in Experiment 2, we presented all species with an absolute classification task that required them to classify a central dot as "small" or "large." We presented a range of ring sizes to determine whether the Delboeuf illusion would occur for any dot-to-ring ratios. Here, we found evidence of the Delboeuf illusion in all 3 species. Humans and monkeys underestimated central dot size to a progressively greater degree with progressively larger rings. The Delboeuf illusion now has been extended to include capuchin monkeys and rhesus monkeys, and through such comparative investigations we can better evaluate hypotheses regarding illusion perception among nonhuman animals.
| S-EPMC4594174 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Metacognitive therapy (MCT) has been shown to be a promising treatment approach for obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). The changeability of metacognitions by (metacognitive) treatment and its relevance to treatment outcome is, however, still unclear. The current study investigates, (1) if treatment with MCT or exposure and response prevention (ERP) in a randomized-controlled pilot trial (n = 24 patients with OCD) changes OCD-specific metacognitions of thought fusion beliefs, beliefs about rituals and stop signals, and (2) if these changes are relevant for the treatment outcome in terms of patient- and therapist-rated OCD symptoms. ANOVA with pretest, posttest and follow-up scores could show that all three metacognitions significantly decreased during both treatments. Regarding thought fusion beliefs, a significant interaction effect indicated a higher decrease after MCT than ERP treatment. In hierarchical regression analyses, changes in stop signals from pre- to post-treatment significantly predicted patient-rating OCD symptoms at post-treatment and follow-up at 3 months after treatment. These changes were even predictive of post-treatment outcome after controlling for general metacognitions and dysfunctional cognitive beliefs. These findings support the assumption that metacognitions can change during both treatments and that changes in stop signals might be relevant for the treatment outcome on the symptom level in OCD.
| S-EPMC8446266 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Representing the absence of objects is psychologically demanding. People are slower, less confident and show lower metacognitive sensitivity (the alignment between subjective confidence and objective accuracy) when reporting the absence compared with presence of visual stimuli. However, what counts as a stimulus absence remains only loosely defined. In this Registered Report, we ask whether such processing asymmetries extend beyond the absence of whole objects to absences defined by stimulus features or expectation violations. Our pre-registered prediction was that differences in the processing of presence and absence reflect a default mode of reasoning: we assume an absence unless evidence is available to the contrary. We predicted asymmetries in response time, confidence, and metacognitive sensitivity in discriminating between stimulus categories that vary in the presence or absence of a distinguishing feature, or in their compliance with an expected default state. Using six pairs of stimuli in six experiments, we find evidence that the absence of local and global stimulus features gives rise to slower, less confident responses, similar to absences of entire stimuli. Contrary to our hypothesis, however, the presence or absence of a local feature has no effect on metacognitive sensitivity. Our results weigh against a proposal of a link between the detection metacognitive asymmetry and default reasoning, and are instead consistent with a low-level visual origin of metacognitive asymmetries for presence and absence.
| S-EPMC8524176 | biostudies-literature
Project description:People have better metacognitive sensitivity for decisions about the presence compared to the absence of objects. However, it is not only objects themselves that can be present or absent, but also parts of objects and other visual features. Asymmetries in visual search indicate that a disadvantage for representing absence may operate at these levels as well. Furthermore, a processing advantage for surprising signals suggests that a presence/absence asymmetry may be explained by absence being passively represented as a default state, and presence as a default-violating surprise. It is unknown whether the metacognitive asymmetry for judgments about presence and absence extends to these different levels of representation (object, feature, and default violation). To address this question and test for a link between the representation of absence and default reasoning more generally, here we measure metacognitive sensitivity for discrimination judgments between stimuli that are identical except for the presence or absence of a distinguishing feature, and for stimuli that differ in their compliance with an expected default state.
| S-EPMC8216202 | biostudies-literature
Project description:We report a novel visual illusion we call the Ring Rotation Illusion (RRI). When a ring of stationary points replaces a circular outline, the ring of points appears to rotate to a halt, although no actual motion has been displayed. Three experiments evaluate the clarity of the illusory rotation. Clarity decreased as the diameter of the circle and ring increased and increased as the number of points forming the ring increased. The optimal interstimulus interval (ISI) between the circle and ring was 90 ms when stimulus presentations lasted 100 ms but 0 ms with 500 ms presentations. We compare the RRI to the Motion Bridging Effect (MBE), a similar illusion in which a stationary ring of points replaces an initial ring of points that spins so rapidly it looks like a stationary outline. A rotation of the stationary ring is seen that usually matches the direction of the initial ring's invisible spin. Participants reported a slightly more frequent and clearer motion percept with the MBE than RRI. ISI manipulations had similar effects on the two illusions, but the effects of number of points and ring diameter were largely restricted to the RRI. We suggest that both the RRI and MBE motion percepts are produced by a visual heuristic that holds that the transition from an outline circle to a ring of points is plausibly explained by a rapid spin decelerating to a halt, but in the case of the MBE, an additional direction-sensitive mechanism contributes to this percept.
| S-EPMC8191087 | biostudies-literature
Project description:In a pattern of horizontal lines containing ± 45° zigzagging phase-shifted strips, vivid illusory motion is perceived when the pattern is translated up or down at a moderate speed. Two forms of illusory motion are seen: [i] a motion "racing" along the diagonal interface between the strips and [ii] lateral (sideways) motion of the strip sections. We found the relative salience of these two illusory motions to be strongly influenced by the vertical spacing and length of the line gratings, and the period length of the zigzag strips. Both illusory motions are abolished when the abutting strips are interleaved, separated by a gap or when a real line is superimposed at the interface. Illusory motion is also severely weakened when equiluminant colored grating lines are used. Illusory motion perception is fully restored at < 20% luminance contrast. Using adaptation, we find that line-ends alone are insufficient for illusory motion perception, and that both physical carrier motion and line orientation are required. We finally test a classical spatiotemporal energy model of V1 cells that exhibit direction tuning changes that are consistent with the direction of illusory motion. Taking this data together, we constructed a new visual illusion and surmise its origin to interactions of spatial and temporal energy of the lines and line-ends preferentially driving the magnocellular pathway.
| S-EPMC7793819 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Our body is made of flesh and bones. We know it, and in our daily lives all the senses constantly provide converging information about this simple, factual truth. But is this always the case? Here we report a surprising bodily illusion demonstrating that humans rapidly update their assumptions about the material qualities of their body, based on their recent multisensory perceptual experience. To induce a misperception of the material properties of the hand, we repeatedly gently hit participants' hand with a small hammer, while progressively replacing the natural sound of the hammer against the skin with the sound of a hammer hitting a piece of marble. After five minutes, the hand started feeling stiffer, heavier, harder, less sensitive, unnatural, and showed enhanced Galvanic skin response (GSR) to threatening stimuli. Notably, such a change in skin conductivity positively correlated with changes in perceived hand stiffness. Conversely, when hammer hits and impact sounds were temporally uncorrelated, participants did not spontaneously report any changes in the perceived properties of the hand, nor did they show any modulation in GSR. In two further experiments, we ruled out that mere audio-tactile synchrony is the causal factor triggering the illusion, further demonstrating the key role of material information conveyed by impact sounds in modulating the perceived material properties of the hand. This novel bodily illusion, the 'Marble-Hand Illusion', demonstrates that the perceived material of our body, surely the most stable attribute of our bodily self, can be quickly updated through multisensory integration.
| S-EPMC3951417 | biostudies-literature
Project description:A new illusion is reported. A visual object suddenly appearing on a red background sometimes causes an impression of flicker or double flash. In Experiment 1, a red, green, or blue object was presented on a red, green, blue, or gray background. Participants evaluated the illusion strength in reference to the physical flicker of a gray object presented in central vision. The results show that the green or blue object presented on the red background caused the illusion. In Experiment 2, the effect of retinal eccentricity on the illusion was tested. The results showed that the illusion was weak in central vision but became stronger as the retinal eccentricity of the objects' presentation increased. In Experiment 3, optimal luminance conditions for the illusion were explored with the green and blue objects. The illusion was strong when object luminance was lower than background luminance and the optimal luminance for the blue object was lower than that for the green object. We propose a tentative theory for the illusion and discuss its cause.
| S-EPMC5761921 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Across eight studies, we tested whether people understand the time course of their own creativity. Prior literature finds that creativity tends to improve across an ideation session. Here we compared people's beliefs against their actual creative performance. Consistent with prior research, we found that people's creativity, on aggregate, remained constant or improved across an ideation session. However, people's beliefs did not match this reality. We consistently found that people expected their creativity to decline over time. We refer to this misprediction as the creative cliff illusion. Study 1 found initial evidence of this effect across an ideation task. We found further evidence in a sample with high domain-relevant knowledge (study 2), when creativity judgments were elicited retrospectively (study 3), and across a multiday study (study 5). We theorized the effect occurs because people mistakenly associate creativity (the novelty and usefulness of an idea) with idea production (the ability to generate an idea). Study 4 found evidence consistent with this mechanism. The creative cliff illusion was attenuated among those with high levels of everyday creative experience (study 6) and after a knowledge intervention that increased awareness of the effect (study 7). Demonstrating the impact of creativity beliefs on downstream performance, study 8 found that declining creativity beliefs negatively influenced task persistence and creative performance, suggesting that people underinvest in ideation. This research contributes to work on prediction in the creative domain and demonstrates the importance of understanding creativity beliefs for predicting creative performance.
| S-EPMC7443938 | biostudies-literature