Making a decision is invariably accompanied by a sense of confidence in that decision. There is widespread variability in the exact level of confidence, even for tasks that do not differ in objective difficulty. Such expressions of under- and overconfidence are of vital importance, as they are related to fundamental life outcomes. Yet, a clear account regarding the computational mechanisms underlying under- and overconfidence is currently missing. In the current work, we propose that prior beliefs in the ability to perform a task can explain why confidence can differ dramatically despite similar task performance. In two experiments, we provide evidence for this hypothesis by showing that manipulating prior beliefs about task performance in an induction phase causally influences reported levels of confidence in a testing phase, while leaving actual performance unaffected. This is true both when prior beliefs are influenced via manipulated feedback and by manipulating the difficulty of the task during the training phase. These results are accounted for within an accumulation-to-bound model by assuming an additional parameter controlling prior beliefs about task performance. Our results provide a fundamental mechanistic insight into the computations underlying over- and underconfidence.
Research among bilinguals suggests a foreign language effect for various tasks requiring a more systematic processing style. For instance, bilinguals seem less prone to heuristic reasoning when solving problem statements in their foreign (FL) as opposed to their native (NL) language. The present study aimed to determine whether such an effect might also be observed in the detection of semantic anomalies. Participants were presented NL and FL questions with and without anomalies while their eye movements were recorded. Overall, they failed to detect the anomaly in more than half of the trials. Furthermore, more illusions occurred for questions presented in the FL, indicating an FL disadvantage. Additionally, eye movement analyses suggested that reading patterns for anomalies are predominantly similar across languages. Our results therefore substantiate theories suggesting that FL use induces cognitive load, causing increased susceptibility to illusions due to partial semantic processing.
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