Post-decision wagering objectively measures awareness
Abstract
The lack of an accepted measure of awareness has made claims that accurate decisions can be made without awareness controversial. Here we introduce a new objective measure of awareness, post-decision wagering. We show that participants fail to maximize cash earnings by wagering high following correct decisions in blindsight, the Iowa gambling task and an artificial grammar task. This demonstrates, without the uncertainties associated with the conventional subjective measures of awareness (verbal reports and confidence ratings), that the participants were not aware that their decisions were correct. Post-decision wagering may be used to study the neural correlates of consciousness.
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The task design ensured that the monkey made a decision about motion direction on each trial.
“The task design, a form of post-decision wagering (26–28), ensured that the monkey made a decision about motion direction on each trial.”
From Representation of Confidence Associated with a Decision by Neurons in the Parietal Cortex (2009) · cites this paper as [26]
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- Authors
- Persaud, N., McLeod, P., & Cowey, A.
- Affiliations
- University of Oxford (GB)
- Corresponding author
- Persaud, Navindra
- ORCID
- Persaud, Navindra
- Venue
- Nature Neuroscience
- Published
- 2007-01-21
- Volume
- 10
- Issue
- 2
- Pages
- 257-261
- ISSN
- 1097-6256 (ISSN-L)
- 1546-1726
- OpenAlex
- W1969847029
- Cited by
- 454
- References
- 19
- Citations by year
- 2026: 11 · 2025: 16 · 2024: 37 · 2023: 9 · 2022: 27 · 2021: 13 · 2020: 20 · 2019: 27 · 2018: 30 · 2017: 21 · 2016: 18 · 2015: 35 · 2014: 31 · 2013: 23 · 2012: 28
- FWCI
- 35.96
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Licence
- www.springer.com/tdm (tdm)
- Locations
- Nature Neuroscience (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Philosophy and Theoretical Science
- Social Sciences › Decision Sciences › General Decision Sciences › Decision-Making and Behavioral Economics
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Visual perception and processing mechanisms
- Keywords
- awareness, blindsight, Iowa Gambling Task, neural correlates of consciousness, decision-making, verbal protocols, confidence ratings, unconscious decision-making
- MeSH terms
- Adult, Awareness, Brain, Consciousness, Decision Making, Discrimination, Psychological, Female, Gambling, Humans, Language Tests, Male, Middle Aged, Neuropsychological Tests, Sensory Thresholds, Unconscious, Psychology, Verbal Behavior, Blindness, Cortical
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