Metacognitive Accuracy Improves With the Perceptual Learning of a Low- but Not High-Level Face Property.

Benjamin Chen,Naotsugu Tsuchiya,Matthew Mundy

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2019.01712

Benjamin Chen, Naotsugu Tsuchiya + Show 1 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.01712

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Journal: Frontier in Psychology	Publication Date: Jul 24, 2019
Citations: 3	License type: CC BY 4.0

Affiliation: Monash University

Abstract

Experience with visual stimuli can improve their perceptual performance, a phenomenon termed visual perceptual learning (VPL). VPL has been found to improve metacognitive measures, suggesting increased conscious accessibility to the knowledge supporting perceptual decision-making. However, such studies have largely failed to control objective task accuracy, which typically correlates with metacognition. Here, using a staircase method to control this confound, we investigated whether VPL improves the metacognitive accuracy of perceptual decision-making. Across 3 days, subjects were trained to discriminate faces based on their high-level identity or low-level contrast. Holding objective accuracy constant across training days, perceptual thresholds decreased in both tasks, demonstrating VPL in our protocol. However, whilemetacognitive accuracy was not affected by face contrast VPL, it was decreased by face identity VPL. Our findings couldbe parsimoniously explained by a dual-stage signal detection theory-based model involving an initial perceptual decision-making stage and a second confidence judgment stage. Within this model, internal noise reductions for both stages accounts for our face contrast VPL result, while only first stage noise reductions accounts for our face identity VPL result. In summary, we found evidence suggesting that conscious knowledge accessibility was improved by the VPL of face contrast but not face identity.

Highlights

The relationship between conscious perception and learning remains a central topic in cognitive neuroscience (Bayne et al, 2009)
Metacognitive accuracy (Type-II Area Under the ROC Curve (AUC)) decreased with training [χ2(1) = 4.52, p = 0.034; Figure 4D], arguing against improved metacognition as predicted by our single-stage model (Figures 1E,F). This decrease in metacognitive accuracy could not be attributed to biases in the use of confidence ratings, as we found no main effect of training on mean confidence ratings for correct [χ2(1) = 0.03, p = 0.87] and incorrect [χ2(1) = 1.29, p = 0.26] trials (Figure 4E), and no main effect of training on the variance of confidence ratings for correct [χ2(1) = 0.054, p = 0.46] and incorrect [χ2(1) = 0.24, p = 0.63] trials (Figure 4F)
We sought to investigate whether or not the metacognitive accuracy of perceptual decision-making could be improved by visual perceptual learning (VPL), and whether learned stimulus complexity modulates this relationship

Summary

Introduction

The relationship between conscious perception and learning remains a central topic in cognitive neuroscience (Bayne et al, 2009). In relation to conscious perception, one line of VPL research has investigated whether conscious experience of visual stimuli is necessary for their VPL, by employing consciously invisible stimuli as the target of VPL (Watanabe et al, 2001; Seitz et al, 2009). Metacognition and Face Perceptual Learning whether VPL improves conscious accessibility to the learned information supporting its perceptual decision-making. Because VPL increased objective task accuracy in these studies, it remains possible that the improvements in confidence judgements were a consequence of increased objective accuracy (Galvin et al, 2003; Maniscalco and Lau, 2012; Barrett et al, 2013), rather than improved conscious accessibility to the knowledge supporting perceptual decision-making (see Schwiedrzik et al, 2011)

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Conclusion