17:00 - 18:30
Talk Session 3
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17:00 - 18:30
Mon—HZ_2—Talks3—26
Mon-Talks3
Room:
Room: HZ_2
Chair/s:
Alexander Goettker
Motivational value biases behavior – not perception
Mon—HZ_2—Talks3—2605
Presented by: Christian Wolf
Christian Wolf 1*Markus Lappe 1Hugh Riddell 2
1 Allgemeine Psychologie, Universität Münster, Münster, Germany, 2 Curtin School of Population Health, Curtin University, Perth, Australia
Whether or not people’s motivation can change how they perceive the world has been contested due to methodological pitfalls and mediating factors. We rigorously tested the potential relationship between motivation and perception. In two experiments with healthy adults (N = 80), we manipulated motivational value and measured motivational quality as the difference between self-reported autonomous and controlled motivation. Motivational quality neither influenced behavior nor perception; however, motivational value affected goal-directed eye movement behavior, which in turn determined perceptual sensitivity. Motivational value additionally induced a bias in perceptual reports. By using pursuit eye movements as an implicit measure of motion perception and contrasting it with perceptual reports, we show that this bias only manifested at the response level – and not in perception. We conclude that effects of motivation on perception operate via behavior, thus challenging direct accounts of motivated perception.
Keywords: eye movements, perception