There are things that we know that we know, and there are things that we do not know we do not know: Confidence in decision-making

Piercesare Grimaldi¹, Hakwan Lau², Michele A Basso³

Affiliations

¹ Departments of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences and Neurobiology, University of California, Los Angeles, CA, USA; Department of Psychology, University of California, Los Angeles, CA, USA; The Semel Institute for Neuroscience, University of California, Los Angeles, CA, USA; The Brain Research Institute, University of California, Los Angeles, CA, USA. Electronic address: pcgrimaldi@ucla.edu.
² Department of Psychology, University of California, Los Angeles, CA, USA; The Brain Research Institute, University of California, Los Angeles, CA, USA.
³ Departments of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences and Neurobiology, University of California, Los Angeles, CA, USA; The Semel Institute for Neuroscience, University of California, Los Angeles, CA, USA; The Brain Research Institute, University of California, Los Angeles, CA, USA.

PMID: 25929444
PMCID: PMC4501881
DOI: 10.1016/j.neubiorev.2015.04.006

Review

There are things that we know that we know, and there are things that we do not know we do not know: Confidence in decision-making

Piercesare Grimaldi et al. Neurosci Biobehav Rev. 2015 Aug.

. 2015 Aug:55:88-97.

doi: 10.1016/j.neubiorev.2015.04.006. Epub 2015 Apr 28.

Authors

Piercesare Grimaldi¹, Hakwan Lau², Michele A Basso³

Affiliations

¹ Departments of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences and Neurobiology, University of California, Los Angeles, CA, USA; Department of Psychology, University of California, Los Angeles, CA, USA; The Semel Institute for Neuroscience, University of California, Los Angeles, CA, USA; The Brain Research Institute, University of California, Los Angeles, CA, USA. Electronic address: pcgrimaldi@ucla.edu.
² Department of Psychology, University of California, Los Angeles, CA, USA; The Brain Research Institute, University of California, Los Angeles, CA, USA.
³ Departments of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences and Neurobiology, University of California, Los Angeles, CA, USA; The Semel Institute for Neuroscience, University of California, Los Angeles, CA, USA; The Brain Research Institute, University of California, Los Angeles, CA, USA.

PMID: 25929444
PMCID: PMC4501881
DOI: 10.1016/j.neubiorev.2015.04.006

Abstract

Metacognition, the ability to think about our own thoughts, is a fundamental component of our mental life and is involved in memory, learning, planning and decision-making. Here we focus on one aspect of metacognition, namely confidence in perceptual decisions. We review the literature in psychophysics, neuropsychology and neuroscience. Although still a very new field, several recent studies suggest there are specific brain circuits devoted to monitoring and reporting confidence, whereas others suggest that confidence information is encoded within decision-making circuits. We provide suggestions, based on interdisciplinary research, to disentangle these disparate results.

Keywords: Awareness; Confidence; Consciousness; Metacognition; Monitoring.

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Figures

**Figure1**
Signal detection theory for performance (A, B) and confidence (C, D). A. Distribution of internal responses for two stimuli, S1 and S2. The observer sets a criterion C such as all responses that are higher than C are considered as belonging to S2, all those that are lower than C are considered S1. Figure B shows the ROC curve generated by distribution in A. The observer also sets additional criteria Co1 and Co2, such that the responses that are lower than Co1 and higher than Co2 are endorsed with high confidence. Figure C shows only the part of the graph that surpasses C. Figure D: ROC curve generated by swiping Co2 in Figure C. Modified from (Maniscalco and Lau, 2012).

**Figure 2**
Map of the areas involved in confidence in the human (left; basal ganglia in grey) and monkey brain (right). 1: antero-medial prefrontal cortex (Del Cul et al., 2009), 2, 4: anterior prefrontal cortex and temporal lobe (Fleming et al., 2010), 3: Brodmann area 46 (Lau and Passingham, 2006), 5: ventral striatum (Hebart et al., 2014), 6: pulvinar (Komura et al., 2013), 7: SEF (Middlebrooks and Sommer, 2012), 8: LIP (Kiani and Shadlen, 2009). 9: OFC. Areas in red are those that are solely involved in confidence. Areas in blue are those involved in both confidence and decision-making.

**Figure 3**
Schematic representation of the diffusion (A) and 2DSD model (B). A. Diffusion model: The black jagged line depicts the accumulation process when the observer chooses alternative B. The boundaries (b1 and b2) are arbitrarily set by the observer as a decision criterion. B. 2DSD model. In this model the accumulation continues after the decision is taken to give a confidence judgment (time 2). Modified from (Pleskac and Busemeyer, 2010).

**Figure 4**
Two examples of how the distribution of the prior and the likelihood can influence the posterior in Bayesian statistics.

See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

1. American Psychiatric Association . Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. 5th Edn. American Psychiatric Publishing; Arlington,VA.: 2013.
1. Aristotle . De Alma. Penguin books; London: 1987.
1. Asch S. Groups, leadership and men. Carnegie Press; Pittsburgh, PA: 1951. Effects of group pressure on the modification and distortion of judgments. pp. 177–190.
1. Bechara A, Damasio AR, Damasio H, Anderson SW. Insensitivity to future consequences following damage to human prefrontal cortex. Cognition. 1994;50:7–15. - PubMed
1. Beck JM, Ma WJ, Kiani R, Hanks T, Churchland AK, Roitman J, Shadlen MN, Latham PE, Pouget A. Probabilistic population codes for Bayesian decision making. Neuron. 2008;60:1142–1152. - PMC - PubMed

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There are things that we know that we know, and there are things that we do not know we do not know: Confidence in decision-making

Affiliations

There are things that we know that we know, and there are things that we do not know we do not know: Confidence in decision-making

Authors

Affiliations

Abstract

Figures

References

Publication types

MeSH terms

Grants and funding

LinkOut - more resources

Full Text Sources

Other Literature Sources