Abstract
The way humans perceive the outcomes of their actions is strongly colored by their expectations. These expectations can develop over different timescales and are not always complementary. The present work examines how long-term (structural) expectations – developed over a lifetime - and short-term (contextual) expectations jointly affect perception. In two studies, including a pre-registered replication, participants initiated the movement of an ambiguously rotating sphere by operating a rotary switch. In the absence of any learning, participants predominantly perceived the sphere to rotate in the same direction as their rotary action. This bias toward structural expectations was abolished (but not reversed) when participants were exposed to incompatible action-effect contingencies (e.g., clockwise actions causing counterclockwise percepts) during a preceding learning phase. Exposure to compatible action-effect contingencies, however, did not add to the existing structural bias. Together, these findings reveal that perception of action-outcomes results from the combined influence of both long-term and immediate expectations.
Highlights
The way humans perceive the outcomes of their actions is strongly colored by their expectations
Tones are generally judged as lasting longer when preceded by a movement of a longer duration[10], the perceived number of visual events is biased by the number of preceding key presses[11], and ambiguous motion percepts are perceived as moving in the same direction as accompanying bodily actions
A few studies have provided evidence for the notion that structural expectations can be modulated by contextual expectations[15,16], such updating effects are not always observed[17]
Summary
The way humans perceive the outcomes of their actions is strongly colored by their expectations. Perceptual expectations can be derived from a myriad of sources[3] This includes the spatial and temporal regularities in the sensory signal itself, and the actions of the observer (e.g., when turning a steering wheel, drivers tend to expect their car to turn in the same direction). Humans form sensory expectations by exposure to relatively stable statistical regularities in the environment across their lifetime Such long-term (structural) expectations can for instance be observed in expert piano players, who are more likely to perceive an ambiguous tone pair as going up or down in pitch after pressing keys on a keyboard in a left-right order or right-left order, respectively[9]. This leaves open the question whether similar contextual updating would be observed in the face of more robust long-term expectations
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