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Metacognition across sensory modalities: Vision, warmth, and nociceptive pain.

ABSTRACT: The distinctive experience of pain, beyond mere processing of nociceptive inputs, is much debated in psychology and neuroscience. One aspect of perceptual experience is captured by metacognition-the ability to monitor and evaluate one's own mental processes. We investigated confidence in judgements about nociceptive pain (i.e. pain that arises from the activation of nociceptors by a noxious stimulus) to determine whether metacognitive processes contribute to the distinctiveness of the pain experience. Our participants made intensity judgements about noxious heat, innocuous warmth, and visual contrast (first-order, perceptual decisions) and rated their confidence in those judgements (second-order, metacognitive decisions). First-order task performance between modalities was balanced using adaptive staircase procedures. For each modality, we quantified metacognitive efficiency (meta-d'/d')-the degree to which participants' confidence reports were informed by the same evidence that contributed to their perceptual judgements-and metacognitive bias (mean confidence)-the participant's tendency to report higher or lower confidence overall. We found no overall differences in metacognitive efficiency or mean confidence between modalities. Mean confidence ratings were highly correlated between all three tasks, reflecting stable inter-individual variability in metacognitive bias. However, metacognitive efficiency for pain varied independently of metacognitive efficiency for warmth and visual perception. That is, those participants who had higher metacognitive efficiency in the visual task also tended to have higher metacognitive efficiency in the warmth task, but not necessarily in the pain task. We thus suggest that some distinctive and idiosyncratic aspects of the pain experience may stem from additional variability at a metacognitive level. We further speculate that this additional variability may arise from the affective or arousal aspects of pain.

SUBMITTER: Beck B

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6411924 | biostudies-literature |

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Project description:AbstractTheory predicts that animals should adjust their escape responses to the perceived predation risk. The information animals obtain about potential predation risk may differ qualitatively depending on the sensory modality by which a cue is perceived. For instance, olfactory cues may reveal better information about the presence or absence of threats, whereas visual information can reliably transmit the position and potential attack distance of a predator. While this suggests a differential use of information perceived through the two sensory channels, the relative importance of visual vs. olfactory cues when distinguishing between different predation threats is still poorly understood. Therefore, we exposed individuals of the cooperatively breeding cichlid Neolamprologus pulcher to a standardized threat stimulus combined with either predator or non-predator cues presented either visually or chemically. We predicted that flight responses towards a threat stimulus are more pronounced if cues of dangerous rather than harmless heterospecifics are presented and that N. pulcher, being an aquatic species, relies more on olfaction when discriminating between dangerous and harmless heterospecifics. N. pulcher responded faster to the threat stimulus, reached a refuge faster and entered a refuge more likely when predator cues were perceived. Unexpectedly, the sensory modality used to perceive the cues did not affect the escape response or the duration of the recovery phase. This suggests that N. pulcher are able to discriminate heterospecific cues with similar acuity when using vision or olfaction. We discuss that this ability may be advantageous in aquatic environments where the visibility conditions strongly vary over time.Significance statementThe ability to rapidly discriminate between dangerous predators and harmless heterospecifics is crucial for the survival of prey animals. In seasonally fluctuating environment, sensory conditions may change over the year and may make the use of multiple sensory modalities for heterospecific discrimination highly beneficial. Here we compared the efficacy of visual and olfactory senses in the discrimination ability of the cooperatively breeding cichlid Neolamprologus pulcher. We presented individual fish with visual or olfactory cues of predators or harmless heterospecifics and recorded their flight response. When exposed to predator cues, individuals responded faster, reached a refuge faster and were more likely to enter the refuge. Unexpectedly, the olfactory and visual senses seemed to be equally efficient in this discrimination task, suggesting that seasonal variation of water conditions experienced by N. pulcher may necessitate the use of multiple sensory channels for the same task.

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Metacognition across sensory modalities: Vision, warmth, and nociceptive pain.

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