Abstract
Understanding how the brain incorporates sensory and motor information will enable better theory building on human perception and behavior. In this study, we aimed to estimate the influence of predictive mechanisms on the magnitude and variability of sensory attenuation in two online samples. After the presentation of a visual cue stimulus, participants (Experiment 1: N = 224, Experiment 2: N = 84) compared the loudness of two consecutive tones in a two-alternative forced-choice task. In Experiment 1, the first tone was either self-initiated or not; in Experiment 2, the second tone was either self-initiated or not (active and passive condition, respectively). We further manipulated identity prediction (i.e., the congruence of pre-learned cue-sound combinations; congruent vs. incongruent), and the duration of the onset delay (to account for effects of attentional differences between the passive and active condition, 50 ms vs. 0 ms). We critically discuss our results within the framework of both classical (i.e., motor-based forward models) and contemporary approaches (i.e., predictive processing framework). Contrary to our preregistered hypothesis, we observed enhanced perceptual processing, instead of attenuation, for self-initiated auditory sensory input. Further, our results reveal an effect of fixed sound delays on the processing of motor and non-motor-based predictive information, and may point to according shifts in attention, leading to a perceptual bias. These results might best be captured by a hybrid explanatory model, combining predictions based on self-initiated motor action with a global predictive mechanism.
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Data availability
Preregistration, raw data and R scripts are available at PsychArchives (https://doi.org/10.23668/psycharchives.7757).
Notes
Note that tone frequencies slightly differed from the ones stated in the preregistration (300 Hz, 600 Hz).
Decibels relative to full scale (dBFS) is a unit used in digital audio systems that describes the relative loudness of audio signals, with 0 dBFS being the threshold for distortion in the signal (Price, 2007).
Please note that we preregistered the test for an effect of “agency” in the opposite direction (i.e., “active” < “passive”, BF-0).
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Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank Stefanie Müller and Lara Raikowski for their invaluable support during this project.
Funding
This work was supported by Leibniz-Institute for Psychology (ZPID) [Grant Number: 7757].
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FK, NK, and GH wrote the manuscript. All authors contributed to the article and approved the submitted version.
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All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the local ethics committee at the Psychologische Hochschule Berlin (PHB; approval number PHB29032022) and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.
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Kiepe, F., Kraus, N. & Hesselmann, G. Self-initiation enhances perceptual processing of auditory stimuli in an online study. Atten Percept Psychophys 86, 587–601 (2024). https://doi.org/10.3758/s13414-023-02827-w
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/s13414-023-02827-w