Psilocybin Microdosing: Expectancy Effects on the Aesthetic Experience
This paper builds on a growing body of research exploring whether microdosing, particularly microdosing with psilocybin, has more than 'just' an expectancy effect.
Specifically, the authors explored whether those microdosing with psilocybin would enhance the aesthetic experience of art and nature.
The study found increases in "awe response" when microdosing vs placebo. However, once corrected for those participants 'breaking blind' (ie correctly guessing which group they were in), these increases were no longer significant.
The authors conclude that "expectancy-effects may be a driving factor underlying the subjective benefits of microdosing".
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ABSTRACT
There is an increased societal trend to engage in microdosing, in which small sub-hallucinogenic amounts of psychedelics are consumed on a regular basis. Following subjective reports that microdosing enhances the experience of nature and art, in the present study we set out to study the effects of psilocybin microdosing on feelings of awe and art perception. In this preregistered combined field- and lab-based study, participants took part in a microdosing workshop after which they volunteered to self-administer a psilocybin microdose or a placebo for three consecutive weeks, while the condition was kept blind to the participants and researchers.
Following a 2-week break, the condition assignment was reversed. During each block, participants visited the lab twice to measure the effects of psilocybin microdosing vs. placebo. We used standardized measures of awe, in which participants reported their experiences in response to short videos or when viewing abstract artworks from different painters. Our confirmatory analyses showed that participants felt more awe in response to videos representing funny animals and moving objects in the microdosing compared to the placebo condition. However, about two-third of our participants were breaking blind to their experimental condition. Our exploratory findings suggest that expectancy-effects may be a driving factor underlying the subjective benefits of microdosing.