London: A new study from UCL researchers finds that subtle, unconscious
increases in arousal – indicated by a faster heartbeat and dilated
pupils – shape our confidence for visual experiences. The study, published in eLife, investigated the
effect of unconscious arousal on how confident participants felt about
what they were seeing when completing a simple task. “Typically when we see something, we have insight not only
into what it is that we’ve seen, but also how clearly we’ve seen it,”
explains lead author Micah Allen (UCL Institute of Neurology). “If the
picture is clouded or obscured, our feeling of confidence in what we’ve
seen is lessened. This ability to accurately appraise our own
experiences is an important part of our everyday lives. To explain this
ability, research has previously suggested that the brain acts a bit
like a scientist or statistician, evaluating the quality of our
experiences to inform how confident we feel. Our study challenges this
view, instead finding that confidence is closely related to unconscious
states of physiological arousal.”