The Effect of Self-Efficacy on Visual Discrimination Sensitivity

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.

Allostatic Self-efficacy: A Metacognitive Theory of Dyshomeostasis-Induced Fatigue and Depression

“…Notably, while this type of metacognitive mechanism remains to be established for interoception and allostasis, it has been shown for other domains of cognition, including low-level processes such as visual discrimination performance (Zacharopoulos et al, 2014), that a prior belief of mastery enhances the actual performance (for reviews, see Bandura, 1977, 1989). Additionally, the proposed generalization of perceived low allostatic self-efficacy as a condition for the development from fatigue to depression requires that beliefs about allostatic mastery be broadcast beyond the circuit in Figure 7—for example, to areas involved in metacognition about other cognitive processes or circuits involved in regulation of mood—a process that should be detectable via differential effective connectivity of regions involved in metacognition about interoception and allostasis.…”

Visual awareness judgments are sensitive to accuracy feedback in stimulus discrimination task

“…One could assume that since performance feedback has been shown to increase perceptual accuracy (Herzog, & Fahle, 1997;Seitz, Nanez, Holloway, Tsushima, & Watanabe, 2006;Schwiedrzik et al, 2009), it would also increase awareness. Interestingly, in other studies in which perceptual awareness was not measured, false positive feedback (after the whole block) also improved perceptual discrimination accuracy (Shibata, Yamagishi, Ishii, & Kawato, 2009;Zacharopoulos, Binetti, Walsh, & Kanai, 2014). A promising direction for future studies would be to test the effect of trial-by-trial false feedback in order to dissociate the effects of real discrimination accuracy and feedback information on stimulus awareness ratings.…”

Similar history biases for distinct prospective decisions of self-performance

“…However, despite the common information pattern based on past confidence and awareness that underlies the formation of prospective judgments, only the prospective decisions to attend appeared to influence type-2 performance, namely, the observer's retrospective evaluation of the correctness of perceptual decisions (meta-d'), but this was not the case following a prospective belief of high success. From the perspective of the 'self-fulfilling prophecy', prospective beliefs of success may set an expectation concerning upcoming behavioural performance that the participant is motivated to meet 13,14 and accordingly, a belief of performance success might in principle encourage observers to invest more cognitive resources in the upcoming trial. Our results suggest that this is not the case.…”

“…the 'self-fulfilling prophecy'). 13,14 This raises the question of whether a different type of prospective decision (e.g. deciding whether to invest more attention on the current trial) may be predicted by the same information pattern that predicts prospective beliefs of success, and whether this type of prospective decision to engage with the environment may play a functional role in behavioural performance.…”

“…Prospective beliefs may set an expectation that the participant is motivated to meet. 13,14 One possibility is that estimations of high probability of success may encourage observers to invest more cognitive resources in the upcoming trial and hence facilitate performance in a similar way to decisions to engage focussed attention. This study was devised to test these hypotheses.…”