Building and using confidence in our perceptual decisions

How do humans compute and handle uncertainty while making decisions? Find out more from Prof. Vincent de Gardelle

When we answer a question, we may have a strong feeling that we know the answer without doubts, or we may feel very uncertain about our response.

This notion of confidence or uncertainty accompanies every choice we make in life, from simple perceptual decisions to complex economic choices. The ability to evaluate our own decisions via such confidence judgments is a form of metacognition, an ability by which we may not only monitor but also regulate our own mental processes and behavior.

In this talk, Vincent de Gardelle will present experimental investigations of both metacognitive monitoring and metacognitive control within the domain of perceptual decisions.

Specifically, on the monitoring side, he will present research showing that confidence represents a task-independent “common currency” and that it is automatically integrated across decisions. On the control side, he will present research showing that confidence can be used for learning in the absence of feedback, and that it can drive prioritization of tasks or responses.

Together, these results show how confidence is a versatile tool for the cognitive system.