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Sources of confidence in value-based choice

Author

Listed:
  • Jeroen Brus

    (Decision Neuroscience Lab, Department of Health Sciences and Technology, ETH Zurich
    Neuroscience Center Zurich)

  • Helena Aebersold

    (Epidemiology, Biostatistics and Prevention Institute, University of Zurich)

  • Marcus Grueschow

    (Zurich Center for Neuroeconomics (ZNE), Department of Economics, University of Zurich)

  • Rafael Polania

    (Decision Neuroscience Lab, Department of Health Sciences and Technology, ETH Zurich
    Neuroscience Center Zurich)

Abstract

Confidence, the subjective estimate of decision quality, is a cognitive process necessary for learning from mistakes and guiding future actions. The origins of confidence judgments resulting from economic decisions remain unclear. We devise a task and computational framework that allowed us to formally tease apart the impact of various sources of confidence in value-based decisions, such as uncertainty emerging from encoding and decoding operations, as well as the interplay between gaze-shift dynamics and attentional effort. In line with canonical decision theories, trial-to-trial fluctuations in the precision of value encoding impact economic choice consistency. However, this uncertainty has no influence on confidence reports. Instead, confidence is associated with endogenous attentional effort towards choice alternatives and down-stream noise in the comparison process. These findings provide an explanation for confidence (miss)attributions in value-guided behaviour, suggesting mechanistic influences of endogenous attentional states for guiding decisions and metacognitive awareness of choice certainty.

Suggested Citation

  • Jeroen Brus & Helena Aebersold & Marcus Grueschow & Rafael Polania, 2021. "Sources of confidence in value-based choice," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 12(1), pages 1-15, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:nat:natcom:v:12:y:2021:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-021-27618-5
    DOI: 10.1038/s41467-021-27618-5
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Tomas Folke & Catrine Jacobsen & Stephen M. Fleming & Benedetto De Martino, 2017. "Explicit representation of confidence informs future value-based decisions," Nature Human Behaviour, Nature, vol. 1(1), pages 1-8, January.
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