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Cited by 12Neural and Behavioral Psychology StudiesDecision-Making and Behavioral EconomicsVisual perception and processing mechanisms

Confidence guides priority between forthcoming tasks

Open access
Aguilar-Lleyda, David, de Gardelle, Vincent·2021·Scientific Reports
DOI 10.1038/s41598-021-97884-2PMC PMC8443637
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Abstract

Humans can estimate confidence in their decisions, and there is increasing interest on how this feeling of confidence regulates future behavior. Here, we investigate whether confidence in a perceptual task affects prioritizing future trials of that task, independently of task performance. To do so, we experimentally dissociated confidence from performance. Participants judged whether an array of differently colored circles was closer to blue or red, and we manipulated the mean and variability of the circles’ colors across the array. We first familiarized participants with a low mean low variability condition and a high mean high variability condition, which were matched in performance despite participants being more confident in the former. Then we made participants decide in which order to complete forthcoming trials for both conditions. Crucially, prioritizing one condition was associated with being more confident in that condition compared to the other. This relationship was observed both across participants, by correlating inter-individual heterogeneity in prioritization and in confidence, and within participants, by assessing how changes in confidence with accuracy, condition and response times could predict prioritization choices. Our results suggest that confidence, above and beyond performance, guides prioritization between forthcoming tasks, strengthening the evidence for its role in regulating behavior.

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  • Global broadcast allows different propositional confidences to be compared in a common frame of reference, enabling decisions about likely success in one task or sensory modality versus another.

    “This would allow different propositional confidences to be compared in a common frame of reference-allowing the agent to decide, for instance, that they are more likely to be successful in judgments of one or other task or sensory modality (Aguilar-Lleyda & de Gardelle 2021).”

    From Metacognition and Confidence: A Review and Synthesis (2024) · cites this paper as Aguilar-Lleyda & de Gardelle 2021

    The Discussion reports that participants’ relative confidence in two conditions of a visual task was associated with which condition they prioritized. The Introduction mentions comparing performance across tasks of different nature, but this study does not establish that global broadcast provides a common frame of reference or demonstrate decisions across sensory modalities. (LLM, conf=0.86)

    Experimental — accuracy not yet measured

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Cited by

Sorted by citations

Authors
Aguilar-Lleyda, D., & de Gardelle, V.
Venue
Scientific Reports
Publisher
Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Published
2021-09-15
Volume
11
Issue
1
Pages
18320-18320
ISSN
2045-2322 (ISSN-L)
DOI
10.1038/s41598-021-97884-2
PMC
PMC8443637
OpenAlex
W3199543127
Cited by
12
References
9
Citations by year
2026: 2 · 2025: 2 · 2024: 3 · 2023: 5
FWCI
1.05
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Licence
Locations
  • Scientific Reports (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion, other-oa)
  • PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • HAL (submittedVersion, cc-by)
  • DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
Funders
Agence Nationale de la Recherche (ANR-16-CE28-0002)
Topics
  • Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Neural and Behavioral Psychology Studies
  • Social Sciences › Decision Sciences › General Decision Sciences › Decision-Making and Behavioral Economics
  • Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Visual perception and processing mechanisms
Keywords
decision confidence, task prioritization, perceptual decision making, individual heterogeneity, reaction time (psychology), color discrimination, behavioral regulation

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