Confidence and certainty: Distinct probabilistic quantities for different goals
Open accessAbstract
When facing uncertainty, adaptive behavioral strategies demand that the brain performs probabilistic computations. In this probabilistic framework, the notion of certainty and confidence would appear to be closely related, so much so that it is tempting to conclude that these two concepts are one and the same. We argue that there are computational reasons to distinguish between these two concepts. Specifically, we propose that confidence should be defined as the probability that a decision or a proposition, overt or covert, is correct given the evidence, a critical quantity in complex sequential decisions. We suggest that the term certainty should be reserved to refer to the encoding of all other probability distributions over sensory and cognitive variables. We also discuss strategies for studying the neural codes for confidence and certainty and argue that clear definitions of neural codes are essential to understanding the relative contributions of various cortical areas to decision making.
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Propositional confidence can be distinguished from other confidences or uncertainties inherent to perception, cognition, and action, although the latter often inform the former.
“The most important idea, building on the work of Pouget et al. (2016), is that propositional confidence can be distinguished from a myriad of other confidences or uncertainties that are inherent to perception, cognition, and action, although the latter often inform the former (Meyniel et al. 2015).”
From Metacognition and Confidence: A Review and Synthesis (2024) · cites this paper as Pouget et al. 2016
The data favors the interpretation that TRI produces a "positivity effect" on user judgement, rather than an "uncertainty-reduction effect".
“The data favors our interpretation that TRI produces a “positivity effect” on user judgement, rather than an “uncertainty-reduction effect” (cf. [59]).”
From Digital Identity: The effect of trust and reputation information on user judgement in the Sharing Economy (2018) · cites this paper as [59]
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Zheng, Y., Recht, S., & Rahnev, D. (2023) · Neuroscience of Consciousness · doi:10.1093/nc/niad023 · Cited by 15 · see citing works
Reduced Context Updating but Intact Visual Priors in Autism
Randeniya, R., Vilares, I., Mattingley, J. B., & Garrido, M. I. (2021) · Computational Psychiatry · doi:10.5334/cpsy.69 · Cited by 17 · see citing works
Winter, C. J., & Peters, M. A. K. (2022) · Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics · doi:10.3758/s13414-021-02358-2 · Cited by 17 · see citing works
Initial Uncertainty Impacts Statistical Learning in Sound Sequence Processing
Todd, J., Provost, A., Whitson, L., & Mullens, D. (2018) · Neuroscience · doi:10.1016/j.neuroscience.2018.05.011 · Cited by 10 · see citing works
- Authors
- Pouget, A., Drugowitsch, J., & Kepecs, A.
- Affiliations
- University of Geneva (CH)
- Corresponding author
- Pouget, Alexandre
- Venue
- Nature Neuroscience
- Published
- 2016-02-23
- Volume
- 19
- Issue
- 3
- Pages
- 366-374
- ISSN
- 1097-6256 (ISSN-L)
- 1546-1726
- PMC
- PMC5378479
- OpenAlex
- W2276275277
- Cited by
- 528
- References
- 74
- Citations by year
- 2026: 58 · 2025: 65 · 2024: 46 · 2023: 56 · 2022: 56 · 2021: 60 · 2020: 44 · 2019: 47 · 2018: 48 · 2017: 30 · 2016: 18
- FWCI
- 30.34
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
- Licence
- www.springer.com/tdm (tdm)
- Locations
- Nature Neuroscience (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Archive ouverte UNIGE (University of Geneva) (publishedVersion)
- PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
- Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Institutional Repository (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory) (submittedVersion)
- Archive ouverte UNIGE (University of Geneva) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- Funders
- National Institute of Mental Health (R01MH097061)
- National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (U01NS094288)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Neural dynamics and brain function
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Neural and Behavioral Psychology Studies
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Visual perception and processing mechanisms
- Keywords
- confidence, certainty, probabilistic computing, neural computation, decision-making, sequential decision making, neural code, Bayesian inference, uncertainty, cortical regions, mathematical definitions
- MeSH terms
- Animals, Cerebral Cortex, Decision Making, Goals, Humans, Models, Neurological, Probability, Uncertainty
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
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