Action Enhances Predicted Touch

Abstract

It is widely believed that predicted tactile action outcomes are perceptually attenuated. The present experiments determined whether predictive mechanisms necessarily generate attenuation or, instead, can enhance perception—as typically observed in sensory cognition domains outside of action. We manipulated probabilistic expectations in a paradigm often used to demonstrate tactile attenuation. Adult participants produced actions and subsequently rated the intensity of forces on a static finger. Experiment 1 confirmed previous findings that action outcomes are perceived less intensely than passive stimulation but demonstrated more intense perception when active finger stimulation was removed. Experiments 2 and 3 manipulated prediction explicitly and found that expected touch during action is perceived more intensely than unexpected touch. Computational modeling suggested that expectations increase the gain afforded to expected tactile signals. These findings challenge a central tenet of prominent motor control theories and demonstrate that sensorimotor predictions do not exhibit a qualitatively distinct influence on tactile perception.