Heuristic use of perceptual evidence leads to dissociation between performance and metacognitive sensitivity.

ABSTRACT: Zylberberg et al. [Zylberberg, Barttfeld, & Sigman (Frontiers in Integrative Neuroscience, 6; 79, 2012), Frontiers in Integrative Neuroscience 6:79] found that confidence decisions, but not perceptual decisions, are insensitive to evidence against a selected perceptual choice. We present a signal detection theoretic model to formalize this insight, which gave rise to a counter-intuitive empirical prediction: that depending on the observer's perceptual choice, increasing task performance can be associated with decreasing metacognitive sensitivity (i.e., the trial-by-trial correspondence between confidence and accuracy). The model also provides an explanation as to why metacognitive sensitivity tends to be less than optimal in actual subjects. These predictions were confirmed robustly in a p

SUBMITTER: Maniscalco B 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4811689 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature