Yang Chenfan, Xu Ziran, Zhong Yaoyao, Wang Tianze
Guangdong Business and Technology University, Zhaoqing, China.
Faculty of Education, Guangxi Normal University, Guilin, China.
Front Psychol. 2023 Jan 13;13:987042. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.987042. eCollection 2022.
The influence of feedback on performance is a topic of ongoing debate, with some previous studies finding it to be ineffective, while others have discovered that it can be helpful or harmful. One possible reason for these inconsistent results may be that feedback can create a conflict between a person's beliefs and the sensory information they receive. In the present study, we used a Vernier discrimination task to examine the influence of biased feedback on performance, as this type of feedback is most likely to create conflict. Biased feedback refers to feedback that does not align with the subjects' choices. The Vernier discrimination task is a type of psychophysical task that is often used to measure an individual's ability to perceive differences in the position or orientation of two visual stimuli. The task involves presenting two stimuli, one of which is slightly offset from the other, and asking the individual to determine the direction and magnitude of the offset. In Experiment 1, feedback was provided after each trial using large-offset verniers as guidance. The large-offset verniers always received correct feedback, but the small and medium-offset verniers might receive biased feedback. In Experiment 2, feedback was provided after each block of eight verniers. In Experiment 3, we removed the large offset vernier to investigate the influence of block feedback on the signal and noise. The results showed that the accuracy for the target vernier decreased due to biased feedback in both the trial feedback (Experiment 1) and the block feedback (Experiment 2). However, in Experiments 1 and 2, performance improved when feedback was absent. Moreover, if the difference between the two types of stimuli is great, the individual will engage in encoding learning rather than decision learning (Experiments 1 and 2). If the discrimination between the two types of stimuli is low, an individual's ability to discriminate noise is more vulnerable to the influence of biased feedback than the ability to discriminate the signal (Experiment 3). These results are discussed in relation to the mechanism of biased feedback, the process of encoding learning, the monitoring of internal feedback, and the generalization of false decisions.
反馈对表现的影响是一个仍在争论的话题，之前的一些研究发现它无效，而另一些研究则发现它可能有帮助或有害。这些结果不一致的一个可能原因是，反馈可能会在一个人的信念和他们接收到的感官信息之间产生冲突。在本研究中，我们使用游标辨别任务来检验有偏差的反馈对表现的影响，因为这种类型的反馈最有可能产生冲突。有偏差的反馈是指与受试者选择不一致的反馈。游标辨别任务是一种心理物理学任务，常用于测量个体感知两个视觉刺激的位置或方向差异的能力。该任务包括呈现两个刺激，其中一个相对于另一个略有偏移，并要求个体确定偏移的方向和大小。在实验1中，使用大偏移游标作为指导，在每次试验后提供反馈。大偏移游标总是收到正确的反馈，但小偏移和中等偏移游标可能会收到有偏差的反馈。在实验2中，在每组八个游标之后提供反馈。在实验3中，我们移除了大偏移游标，以研究组块反馈对信号和噪声的影响。结果表明，在试验反馈（实验1）和组块反馈（实验2）中，目标游标的准确性因有偏差的反馈而降低。然而，在实验1和2中，没有反馈时表现会有所提高。此外，如果两种刺激之间的差异很大，个体将进行编码学习而不是决策学习（实验1和2）。如果两种刺激之间的辨别力较低，个体辨别噪声的能力比辨别信号的能力更容易受到有偏差反馈的影响（实验3）。我们将结合有偏差反馈的机制、编码学习的过程、内部反馈的监测以及错误决策的泛化来讨论这些结果。
