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Cited by 297Visual perception and processing mechanismsDecision-Making and Behavioral EconomicsNeural and Behavioral Psychology Studies

The construction of confidence in a perceptual decision

Open access
Zylberberg, Ariel, Barttfeld, Pablo, Sigman, Mariano·2012·Frontiers in Integrative Neuroscience
DOI 10.3389/fnint.2012.00079PMC PMC3448113
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Abstract

Decision-making involves the selection of one out of many possible courses of action. A decision may bear on other decisions, as when humans seek a second medical opinion before undergoing a risky surgical intervention. These "meta-decisions" are mediated by confidence judgments-the degree to which decision-makers consider that a choice is likely to be correct. We studied how subjective confidence is constructed from noisy sensory evidence. The psychophysical kernels used to convert sensory information into choice and confidence decisions were precisely reconstructed measuring the impact of small fluctuations in sensory input. This is shown in two independent experiments in which human participants made a decision about the direction of motion of a set of randomly moving dots, or compared the brightness of a group of fluctuating bars, followed by a confidence report. The results of both experiments converged to show that: (1) confidence was influenced by evidence during a short window of time at the initial moments of the decision, and (2) confidence was influenced by evidence for the selected choice but was virtually blind to evidence for the non-selected choice. Our findings challenge classical models of subjective confidence-which posit that the difference of evidence in favor of each choice is the seed of the confidence signal.

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  • The positive evidence bias (PEB) manifests as confidence being more affected by evidence in favor of a choice than by evidence against it, such that an increase in overall evidence results in boosts in confidence even though performance remains unaffected.

    “The PEB manifests as confidence being more affected by evidence in favor of a choice than by evidence against it (Zylberberg et al. 2012), such that an increase in overall evidence results in boosts in confidence even though performance remains unaffected.”

    From Metacognition and Confidence: A Review and Synthesis (2024) · cites this paper as Zylberberg et al. 2012

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Research works printed but not linked: 27

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Authors
Zylberberg, A., Barttfeld, P., & Sigman, M.
Affiliations
  • Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience (NL)
  • Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas (AR)
Corresponding author
Zylberberg, Ariel
ORCID
Venue
Frontiers in Integrative Neuroscience
Publisher
Frontiers Media SA
Published
2012
Volume
6
Pages
79-79
ISSN
1662-5145 (ISSN-L)
DOI
10.3389/fnint.2012.00079
PMC
PMC3448113
OpenAlex
W2157165940
Cited by
297
References
5
Citations by year
2026: 13 · 2025: 21 · 2024: 23 · 2023: 42 · 2022: 23 · 2021: 28 · 2020: 36 · 2019: 22 · 2018: 20 · 2017: 12 · 2016: 20 · 2015: 14 · 2014: 18 · 2013: 4
FWCI
6.07
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Licence
cc-by
Locations
  • Frontiers in Integrative Neuroscience (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed Central (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • KNAW Research Portal (The Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences) (publishedVersion)
  • Conicet (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • Data Archiving and Networked Services (DANS) (submittedVersion)
  • DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
  • Greater South Information System
Funders
  • Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas
  • Universidad de Buenos Aires (CONICET)
Topics
  • Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Visual perception and processing mechanisms
  • Social Sciences › Decision Sciences › General Decision Sciences › Decision-Making and Behavioral Economics
  • Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Neural and Behavioral Psychology Studies
Keywords
subjective confidence, perceptual decision making, sensory evidence, motion direction discrimination, brightness discrimination

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