IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hal/journl/hal-02958760.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Confidence as a Priority Signal

Author

Listed:
  • David Aguilar-Lleyda

    (CES - Centre d'économie de la Sorbonne - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique)

  • Maxime Lemarchand

    (CES - Centre d'économie de la Sorbonne - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique)

  • Vincent de Gardelle

    (CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, PSE - Paris School of Economics - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - ENS-PSL - École normale supérieure - Paris - PSL - Université Paris Sciences et Lettres - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - ENPC - École des Ponts ParisTech - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement, CES - Centre d'économie de la Sorbonne - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique)

Abstract

When dealing with multiple tasks, we must establish the order in which to tackle them. In multiple experiments, including a preregistered replication (Ns = 16–105), we found that confidence, or the subjective accuracy of decisions, acts as a priority signal, both when ordering responses about tasks already completed or ordering tasks yet to be completed. Specifically, when participants categorized perceptual stimuli along two dimensions, they tended to first give the decision associated with higher confidence. When participants selected which of two tasks they wanted to perform first, they were slightly biased toward the task associated with higher confidence. This finding extends to nonperceptual decisions (mental calculation) and cannot be reduced to effects of task difficulty, response accuracy, response availability, or implicit demands. Our results thus support the role of confidence as a priority signal, thereby suggesting a new way in which it may regulate human behavior.

Suggested Citation

  • David Aguilar-Lleyda & Maxime Lemarchand & Vincent de Gardelle, 2020. "Confidence as a Priority Signal," Post-Print hal-02958760, HAL.
    • Handle: RePEc:hal:journl:hal-02958760
    DOI: 10.1177/0956797620925039
    Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://hal.science/hal-02958760
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://hal.science/hal-02958760/document
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/0956797620925039?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Adam Kepecs & Naoshige Uchida & Hatim A. Zariwala & Zachary F. Mainen, 2008. "Neural correlates, computation and behavioural impact of decision confidence," Nature, Nature, vol. 455(7210), pages 227-231, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. repec:hal:pseptp:hal-03329211 is not listed on IDEAS
    2. repec:hal:journl:hal-03329211 is not listed on IDEAS
    3. repec:hal:cesptp:hal-03329211 is not listed on IDEAS

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Ronald H Stevens & Trysha L Galloway, 2022. "Can machine learning be used to forecast the future uncertainty of military teams?," The Journal of Defense Modeling and Simulation, , vol. 19(2), pages 145-158, April.
    2. Wan-Yu Shih & Hsiang-Yu Yu & Cheng-Chia Lee & Chien-Chen Chou & Chien Chen & Paul W. Glimcher & Shih-Wei Wu, 2023. "Electrophysiological population dynamics reveal context dependencies during decision making in human frontal cortex," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 14(1), pages 1-24, December.
    3. Andrea Insabato & Mario Pannunzi & Gustavo Deco, 2017. "Multiple Choice Neurodynamical Model of the Uncertain Option Task," PLOS Computational Biology, Public Library of Science, vol. 13(1), pages 1-29, January.
    4. Florent Meyniel, 2020. "Brain dynamics for confidence-weighted learning," PLOS Computational Biology, Public Library of Science, vol. 16(6), pages 1-27, June.
    5. Johannes Rüter & Henning Sprekeler & Wulfram Gerstner & Michael H Herzog, 2013. "The Silent Period of Evidence Integration in Fast Decision Making," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 8(1), pages 1-7, January.
    6. Duarte S Viana & Isabel Gordo & Élio Sucena & Marta A P Moita, 2010. "Cognitive and Motivational Requirements for the Emergence of Cooperation in a Rat Social Game," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 5(1), pages 1-9, January.
    7. Micha Heilbron & Florent Meyniel, 2019. "Confidence resets reveal hierarchical adaptive learning in humans," PLOS Computational Biology, Public Library of Science, vol. 15(4), pages 1-24, April.
    8. Leopold Zizlsperger & Thomas Sauvigny & Thomas Haarmeier, 2012. "Selective Attention Increases Choice Certainty in Human Decision Making," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 7(7), pages 1-9, July.
    9. Manuel Rausch & Michael Zehetleitner, 2019. "The folded X-pattern is not necessarily a statistical signature of decision confidence," PLOS Computational Biology, Public Library of Science, vol. 15(10), pages 1-18, October.
    10. Laurence Aitchison & Dan Bang & Bahador Bahrami & Peter E Latham, 2015. "Doubly Bayesian Analysis of Confidence in Perceptual Decision-Making," PLOS Computational Biology, Public Library of Science, vol. 11(10), pages 1-23, October.
    11. Marina Martinez-Garcia & Andrea Insabato & Mario Pannunzi & Jose L Pardo-Vazquez & Carlos Acuña & Gustavo Deco, 2015. "The Encoding of Decision Difficulty and Movement Time in the Primate Premotor Cortex," PLOS Computational Biology, Public Library of Science, vol. 11(11), pages 1-25, November.
    12. Eleanor Holton & Jan Grohn & Harry Ward & Sanjay G. Manohar & Jill X. O’Reilly & Nils Kolling, 2024. "Goal commitment is supported by vmPFC through selective attention," Nature Human Behaviour, Nature, vol. 8(7), pages 1351-1365, July.
    13. Charlotte Caucheteux & Alexandre Gramfort & Jean-Rémi King, 2023. "Evidence of a predictive coding hierarchy in the human brain listening to speech," Nature Human Behaviour, Nature, vol. 7(3), pages 430-441, March.
    14. Sebastian Bitzer & Jelle Bruineberg & Stefan J Kiebel, 2015. "A Bayesian Attractor Model for Perceptual Decision Making," PLOS Computational Biology, Public Library of Science, vol. 11(8), pages 1-35, August.
    15. Florent Meyniel & Daniel Schlunegger & Stanislas Dehaene, 2015. "The Sense of Confidence during Probabilistic Learning: A Normative Account," PLOS Computational Biology, Public Library of Science, vol. 11(6), pages 1-25, June.
    16. William T Adler & Wei Ji Ma, 2018. "Comparing Bayesian and non-Bayesian accounts of human confidence reports," PLOS Computational Biology, Public Library of Science, vol. 14(11), pages 1-34, November.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:hal:journl:hal-02958760. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: CCSD (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.