Abstract
Can subjective belief about one's own perceptual competence change one's perception? To address this question, we investigated the influence of self-efficacy on sensory discrimination in two low-level visual tasks: contrast and orientation discrimination. We utilised a pre-post manipulation approach whereby two experimental groups (high and low self-efficacy) and a control group made objective perceptual judgments on the contrast or the orientation of the visual stimuli. High and low self-efficacy were induced by the provision of fake social-comparative performance feedback and fictional research findings. Subsequently, the post-manipulation phase was performed to assess changes in visual discrimination thresholds as a function of the self-efficacy manipulations. The results showed that the high self-efficacy group demonstrated greater improvement in visual discrimination sensitivity compared to both the low self-efficacy and control groups. These findings suggest that subjective beliefs about one's own perceptual competence can affect low-level visual processing.
Highlights
Can subjective beliefs about one’s own perceptual competence change one’s perception? Traditionally, facilitation of low-level perceptual skills has been primarily attributed to two mechanisms: attention and visual perceptual learning
We performed planned contrast to compare the groups of interest
These results indicate that experimental manipulation had successfully generated differential visual discrimination sensitivity (VDS) across high and low SE groups as hypothesized
Summary
Facilitation of low-level perceptual skills has been primarily attributed to two mechanisms: attention and visual perceptual learning. Previous visual perceptual learning studies demonstrated perceptual improvements specific to the stimulus attributes used in training Many psychological models of behavioral change have been proposed to explain and predict improvements in task performance to date. The SE theory predicts that behavioural change is a direct function of the individual’s beliefs in one’s ability to exercise control over that particular behaviour [8]. Given the ubiquitous effects of SE on performance, one might ask whether these effects generalise to low-level perceptual skills despite the fact that perceptual sensitivity is known to be a relatively stable trait within individuals that cannot be changed without prolonged training [13], [7]
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