Increased dependence on visual cues in Parkinson's disease (PD) can unbalance the perception‐action loop, impair multisensory integration, and affect everyday function of PD patients. It is currently unknown why PD patients seem to be more reliant on their visual cues. We hypothesized that PD patients may be overconfident in the reliability (precision) of their visual cues. In this study we tested coherent visual motion perception in PD, and probed subjective (self‐reported) confidence in their visual motion perception. Twenty patients with idiopathic PD, 21 healthy aged‐matched controls and 20 healthy young adult participants were presented with visual stimuli of moving dots (random dot kinematograms). They were asked to report: (1) whether the aggregate motion of dots was to the left or to the right, and (2) how confident they were that their perceptual discrimination was correct. Visual motion discrimination thresholds were similar (unimpaired) in PD compared to the other groups. By contrast, PD patients were significantly overconfident in their visual perceptual decisions (p = .002 and p < .001 vs. the age‐matched and young adult groups, respectively). These results suggest intact visual motion perception, but overestimation of visual cue reliability, in PD. Overconfidence in visual (vs. other, e.g., somatosensory) cues could underlie increased visual dependence and impaired multisensory/sensorimotor integration in PD. It could thereby contribute to gait and balance impairments, and affect everyday activities, such as driving. Future work should investigate and compare PD confidence in somatosensory function. A better understanding of altered sensory reliance might open up new avenues to treat debilitating PD symptoms.

中文翻译：

---

对帕金森氏病的视觉感知过度自信

对帕金森氏病（PD）视觉提示的依赖性增加，可能会失衡感知-行动回路，损害多感官整合，并影响PD患者的日常功能。目前尚不清楚为什么PD患者似乎更依赖其视觉提示。我们假设PD患者可能对他们的视觉提示的可靠性（准确性）过于自信。在这项研究中，我们测试了PD中相干的视觉运动知觉，并探究了他们对视觉运动知觉的主观（自我报告）置信度。向20例特发性PD患者，21名健康的老年匹配对照组和20名健康的年轻成年人受试者提供了运动点的视觉刺激（随机点运动图）。他们被要求报告：（1）点的总体运动是向左还是向右，（2）他们对自己的感知歧视是正确的有多自信。与其他组相比，PD的视觉运动辨别阈值相似（未受损）。相比之下，PD患者在视觉感知决策上明显过分自信（ 与年龄匹配组和年轻成年人组相比，p  = .002和p <.001）。这些结果表明，PD中视觉运动感知能力完好，但视觉提示的可靠性被高估了。视觉上（相对于其他方面，例如体感）暗示的过度自信可能是视觉依赖性增强和PD中多​​感官/感觉运动整合受损的基础。因此，它可能导致步态和平衡障碍，并影响日常活动，例如驾驶。未来的工作应调查并比较PD对体感功能的信心。对改变的感觉依赖性的更好理解可能为治疗使人衰弱的PD症状开辟新途径。