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

Frontiers in Psychology

article

Benjamin Chen¹  Matthew Mundy¹  Naotsugu Tsuchiya¹ 

[1] School of Psychological Sciences, Faculty of Biomedical and Psychological Sciences, Monash University;Monash Institute of Cognitive and Clinical Neuroscience, Monash University

关键词: conscious and unconscious memory;    face perception and cognition;    metacognition;    perceptual learning;    memory and learning;   

DOI  :  10.3389/fpsyg.2019.01712

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: Frontiers

【 摘 要 】

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.

【 授权许可】

CC BY