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Vision of the body increases interference on the somatic signal detection task

Experimental Brain Research volume 202, pages 787–794 (2010)Cite this article

Abstract

Research suggests that attention has a significant effect on somatic perception in both healthy people and those who suffer from somatic disturbance. The current study investigates the effects of attending to the body on somatic awareness and a particular type of somatic disturbance: erroneous reports of touch sensation, as measured by the Somatic Signal Detection Task (SSDT). During the SSDT, participants are required to detect near-threshold tactile stimulation at their fingertip. Previous research has found that healthy participants erroneously report touch sensations in the absence of a stimulus on this task and that such false alarms are increased when a simultaneous light flash is presented next to their fingertip. Thirty-seven participants completed the SSDT under two conditions: non-informative vision of the hand and no vision of the hand. False alarms were significantly higher in light trials in the non-informative vision condition compared to light trials in the no-vision condition. However, hit rates, sensitivity (d′) and response criterion (c) were not affected by non-informative vision of the hand. Using the SSDT, we found that viewing the body increased somatic interference, possibly due to raised awareness of internal bodily sensations. This work provides evidence that viewing the body can have a detrimental effect on simple detection of near-threshold tactile stimulation.

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Notes

  1. Five participants had hit rates of over 90% and one had a hit rate of 1% during no light trials in the non-informative vision condition of the SSDT (equivalent to thresholding trials) suggesting that a consistent threshold level had not been achieved for these participants.

  2. The original intention was to use confidence ratings to conduct receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis, however this was not possible as some participants did not use all of the response options in all conditions. Collapsing the data gave similar false alarm rates as found in previous studies (e.g. Lloyd et al. 2008).

  3. Although false alarm rates were higher in the vision compared to the no vision condition in both light conditions, this increase was only significant in the light condition.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported in part by grants from The Leverhulme Trust [F/00 120/BF] and the BBSRC (BB/D524432/1). The authors wish to thank Dr Kirsten McKenzie for help in programming the experiment.

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Affiliations

  1. Division of Psychology, School of Psychological Sciences, University of Manchester, Zochonis Building, Brunswick Street, Manchester, M13 9PL, UK

    Laura Mirams, Ellen Poliakoff & Donna M. Lloyd

  2. Division of Clinical Psychology, School of Psychological Sciences, University of Manchester, Zochonis Building, Brunswick Street, Manchester, M13 9PL, UK

    Richard J. Brown

Authors
  1. Laura Mirams
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  2. Ellen Poliakoff
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  3. Richard J. Brown
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  4. Donna M. Lloyd
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Correspondence to Laura Mirams.

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Mirams, L., Poliakoff, E., Brown, R.J. et al. Vision of the body increases interference on the somatic signal detection task. Exp Brain Res 202, 787–794 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00221-010-2185-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00221-010-2185-7

Keywords

  • Attention
  • Signal detection analysis
  • Somatic
  • Vision