Action Enhances Predicted Touch

Area of Science:

• Neuroscience
• Cognitive Psychology
• Sensory Perception

Background:

• A prevailing view suggests that predicted tactile outcomes of actions are perceptually attenuated.
• However, it remains unclear if predictive mechanisms inherently cause attenuation or can enhance perception, as seen in other sensory domains.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate whether predictive mechanisms in tactile perception necessarily lead to attenuation or can instead enhance sensory experience.
• To challenge the notion that sensorimotor predictions have a unique influence on tactile perception.

Main Methods:

• Adult participants performed actions and then rated the intensity of forces applied to a static finger.
• Probabilistic expectations were manipulated using a paradigm commonly employed to demonstrate tactile attenuation.
• Computational modeling was used to analyze the effect of expectations on tactile signal gain.

Main Results:

• Experiment 1 replicated findings of tactile attenuation but also showed enhanced perception when active stimulation was removed.
• Experiments 2 and 3 demonstrated that expected touch during action is perceived more intensely than unexpected touch.
• Computational models indicated that expectations amplify the gain of expected tactile signals.

Conclusions:

• Sensorimotor predictions do not exclusively result in perceptual attenuation; they can also enhance tactile perception.
• These findings contradict central tenets of prominent motor control theories regarding predictive processing in action.
• The influence of sensorimotor predictions on tactile perception is not qualitatively distinct from other cognitive predictions.