Automatic multisensory integration follows subjective confidence rather than objective performance
Abstract It is well known that sensory information from one modality can automatically affect judgments from a different sensory modality. However, it remains unclear what determines the strength of the influence of an irrelevant sensory cue from one modality on a perceptual judgment for a different...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Nature Portfolio
2025-03-01
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| Series: | Communications Psychology |
| Online Access: | https://doi.org/10.1038/s44271-025-00221-w |
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| _version_ | 1849343253058420736 |
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| author | Yi Gao Kai Xue Brian Odegaard Dobromir Rahnev |
| author_facet | Yi Gao Kai Xue Brian Odegaard Dobromir Rahnev |
| author_sort | Yi Gao |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Abstract It is well known that sensory information from one modality can automatically affect judgments from a different sensory modality. However, it remains unclear what determines the strength of the influence of an irrelevant sensory cue from one modality on a perceptual judgment for a different modality. Here we test whether the strength of multisensory impact by an irrelevant sensory cue depends on participants’ objective accuracy or subjective confidence for that cue. We created visual motion stimuli with low vs. high overall motion energy, where high-energy stimuli yielded higher confidence but lower accuracy in a visual-only task. We then tested the impact of the low- and high-energy visual stimuli on auditory motion perception in 99 participants. We found that the high-energy visual stimuli influenced the auditory motion judgments more strongly than the low-energy visual stimuli, consistent with their higher confidence but contrary to their lower accuracy. A computational model assuming common principles underlying confidence reports and multisensory integration captured these effects. Our findings show that automatic multisensory integration follows subjective confidence rather than objective performance and suggest the existence of common computations across vastly different stages of perceptual decision making. |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj-art-baf9a64dc8e6422baf10e95ac7acbe3f |
| institution | Kabale University |
| issn | 2731-9121 |
| language | English |
| publishDate | 2025-03-01 |
| publisher | Nature Portfolio |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Communications Psychology |
| spelling | doaj-art-baf9a64dc8e6422baf10e95ac7acbe3f2025-08-20T03:43:02ZengNature PortfolioCommunications Psychology2731-91212025-03-013111110.1038/s44271-025-00221-wAutomatic multisensory integration follows subjective confidence rather than objective performanceYi Gao0Kai Xue1Brian Odegaard2Dobromir Rahnev3School of Psychology, Georgia Institute of TechnologySchool of Psychology, Georgia Institute of TechnologyDepartment of Psychology, University of FloridaSchool of Psychology, Georgia Institute of TechnologyAbstract It is well known that sensory information from one modality can automatically affect judgments from a different sensory modality. However, it remains unclear what determines the strength of the influence of an irrelevant sensory cue from one modality on a perceptual judgment for a different modality. Here we test whether the strength of multisensory impact by an irrelevant sensory cue depends on participants’ objective accuracy or subjective confidence for that cue. We created visual motion stimuli with low vs. high overall motion energy, where high-energy stimuli yielded higher confidence but lower accuracy in a visual-only task. We then tested the impact of the low- and high-energy visual stimuli on auditory motion perception in 99 participants. We found that the high-energy visual stimuli influenced the auditory motion judgments more strongly than the low-energy visual stimuli, consistent with their higher confidence but contrary to their lower accuracy. A computational model assuming common principles underlying confidence reports and multisensory integration captured these effects. Our findings show that automatic multisensory integration follows subjective confidence rather than objective performance and suggest the existence of common computations across vastly different stages of perceptual decision making.https://doi.org/10.1038/s44271-025-00221-w |
| spellingShingle | Yi Gao Kai Xue Brian Odegaard Dobromir Rahnev Automatic multisensory integration follows subjective confidence rather than objective performance Communications Psychology |
| title | Automatic multisensory integration follows subjective confidence rather than objective performance |
| title_full | Automatic multisensory integration follows subjective confidence rather than objective performance |
| title_fullStr | Automatic multisensory integration follows subjective confidence rather than objective performance |
| title_full_unstemmed | Automatic multisensory integration follows subjective confidence rather than objective performance |
| title_short | Automatic multisensory integration follows subjective confidence rather than objective performance |
| title_sort | automatic multisensory integration follows subjective confidence rather than objective performance |
| url | https://doi.org/10.1038/s44271-025-00221-w |
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