Unconscious information changes decision accuracy but not confidence
Open accessAbstract
Significance: One of the more intriguing but controversial ideas in psychology is that unconscious information can influence our decisions without us even knowing it. Here, we explicitly tested these controversial ideas with a novel behavioral task and computational models of decision-making. We report that unconscious information can be accumulated in a similar manner but less effectively than conscious information. However, unlike conscious information, unconscious information does not seem to boost decision confidence. Our findings cannot be accounted for using existing models of priming or adaptation.
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- Authors
- Vlassova, A., Donkin, C., & Pearson, J.
- Affiliations
- UNSW Sydney (AU)
- Venue
- Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
- Publisher
- National Academy of Sciences
- Published
- 2014-10-27
- Volume
- 111
- Issue
- 45
- Pages
- 16214-16218
- ISSN
- 0027-8424 (ISSN-L)
- 1091-6490
- PMC
- PMC4234611
- OpenAlex
- W2025791597
- Cited by
- 70
- References
- 36
- Citations by year
- 2026: 4 · 2025: 4 · 2024: 5 · 2023: 3 · 2022: 6 · 2021: 9 · 2020: 11 · 2019: 2 · 2018: 8 · 2017: 7 · 2016: 8 · 2015: 3
- FWCI
- 3.35
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
- Locations
- Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (publishedVersion)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- UNSWorks (UNSW Sydney) (submittedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
- UNSWorks (University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia) (submittedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Visual perception and processing mechanisms
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Neural and Behavioral Psychology Studies
- Social Sciences › Decision Sciences › General Decision Sciences › Decision-Making and Behavioral Economics
- Keywords
- decision accuracy, metacognition, confidence, evidence accumulation, conscious awareness, diffusion models, decision-making
- MeSH terms
- Decision Making, Female, Humans, Male, Mental Processes, Models, Psychological
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