title: 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.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, School of Psychology, University College London, London, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: George
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Zacharopoulos
authors.affiliation: Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, School of Psychology, University College London, London, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Nicola
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Binetti
authors.affiliation: Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, School of Psychology, University College London, London, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Vincent
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Walsh
authors.affiliation: Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, School of Psychology, University College London, London, United Kingdom; Sackler Centre for Consciousness Science, School of Psychology, University of Sussex, Sussex, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Ryota
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Kanai
mesh_terms: D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual / Q000502:physiology; D020377:Self Efficacy; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D014796:Visual Perception / Q000502:physiology*