Cited by 134Neural and Behavioral Psychology StudiesMemory Processes and InfluencesDecision-Making and Behavioral Economics

Forming global estimates of self-performance from local confidence

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Rouault, Marion, Dayan, Peter, Fleming, Stephen M.·2019·Nature Communications

Abstract

Metacognition, the ability to internally evaluate our own cognitive performance, is particularly useful since many real-life decisions lack immediate feedback. While most previous studies have focused on the construction of confidence at the level of single decisions, little is known about the formation of “global” self-performance estimates (SPEs) aggregated from multiple decisions. Here, we compare the formation of SPEs in the presence and absence of feedback, testing a hypothesis that local decision confidence supports the formation of SPEs when feedback is unavailable. We reveal that humans pervasively underestimate their performance in the absence of feedback, compared to a condition with full feedback, despite objective performance being unaffected. We find that fluctuations in confidence contribute to global SPEs over and above objective accuracy and reaction times. Our findings create a bridge between a computation of local confidence and global SPEs, and support a functional role for confidence in higher-order behavioral control.

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  • Global confidence can be considered a higher-order prior on estimates of local propositional confidence, naturally modeled as a probability distribution over expected success.

    “One fruitful approach considers global confidence as a higher-order prior on estimates of (local) propositional confidence (Boldt et al. 2019, Marcke et al. 2022), which can be naturally modeled as a probability distribution over expected success (Rouault et al. 2019).”

    From Metacognition and Confidence: A Review and Synthesis (2024) · cites this paper as Rouault et al. 2019

  • Global confidence is informed by local confidence fluctuations during the previous block.

    “Global confidence was informed by local confidence fluctuations during the previous block, and using fMRI, it was found that vmPFC and precuneus integrate local confidence over longer timescales to track aggregate self-performance (Rouault & Fleming 2020, Wittmann et al. 2016).”

    From Metacognition and Confidence: A Review and Synthesis (2024) · cites this paper as Rouault et al. 2019

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Authors
Rouault, M., Dayan, P., & Fleming, S. M.
Affiliations
Wellcome Centre for Human Neuroimaging (GB)
Corresponding author
Rouault, Marion
Venue
Nature Communications
Published
2019-03-08
Volume
10
Issue
1
Pages
1141-1141
ISSN
2041-1723 (ISSN-L)
OpenAlex
W2921883422
Cited by
134
References
60
Citations by year
2026: 22 · 2025: 16 · 2024: 26 · 2023: 27 · 2022: 18 · 2021: 15 · 2020: 9 · 2019: 1
FWCI
6.25
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Locations
  • Nature Communications (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion, other-oa)
  • PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • HAL (submittedVersion, cc-by)
  • RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
  • DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
  • DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion)
  • UCL Discovery (University College London) (submittedVersion)
  • MPG.PuRe (Max Planck Society) (submittedVersion)
Funders
  • Wellcome Trust (203147/Z/16/Z, Z/17/Z, 203147, 206648/Z/17/Z, 206648, 203147/Z/16/)
  • Gatsby Charitable Foundation
  • Agence Nationale de la Recherche (ANR-17-EURE-0017)
  • Max-Planck-Gesellschaft (203147/Z/16/Z, 206648/Z/17/Z)
Topics
  • Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Neural and Behavioral Psychology Studies
  • Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Memory Processes and Influences
  • Social Sciences › Decision Sciences › General Decision Sciences › Decision-Making and Behavioral Economics
Keywords
metacognition, decision confidence, feedback, reaction time, behavioral control
MeSH terms
Metacognition, Adult, Decision Making, Female, Humans, Judgment, Male, Middle Aged, Pattern Recognition, Visual, Psychological Tests, Psychomotor Performance, Reaction Time, Self Concept, Feedback, Psychological

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