There is currently little direct evidence regarding the function of subjective confidence in decision making: The tight correlation between objective accuracy and subjective confidence makes it difficult to distinguish each variable's unique contribution. Here, we created conditions in a perceptual decision task that were matched in accuracy but differed in subjective evaluation of accuracy by orthogonally varying the strength versus variability of evidence. Confidence was reduced with variable (vs. weak) evidence, even across conditions matched for difficulty. Building on this dissociation, we constructed a paradigm in which participants ( N = 20) could choose to seek further information before making their decision. The data provided clear support for the hypothesis that subjective confidence predicts information seeking in decision making: Participants were more likely to sample additional information before giving a response in the condition with low confidence, despite matched accuracy. In a preregistered replication ( N = 50), these findings were replicated with increased task difficulty levels.

Understanding how people rate their confidence is critical for characterizing a wide range of perceptual, memory, motor, and cognitive processes. To enable the continued exploration of these processes, we created a large database of confidence studies spanning a broad set of paradigms, participant populations, and fields of study. The data from each study are structured in a common,

Theoretical work predicts that decisions made with low confidence should lead to increased information-seeking. This is an adaptive strategy because it can increase the quality of a decision, and previous behavioral work has shown that decision-makers engage in such confidence-driven information-seeking. The present study aimed to characterize the neural markers that mediate the relationship between confidence and information-seeking. A paradigm was used in which 17 human participants (9 male) made an initial perceptual decision, and then decided whether or not they wanted to sample more evidence before committing to a final decision and confidence judgment. Predecisional and postdecisional event-related potential components were similarly modulated by the level of confidence and by information-seeking choices. Time-resolved multivariate decoding of scalp EEG signals first revealed that both information-seeking choices and decision confidence could be decoded from the time of the initial decision to the time of the subsequent information-seeking choice (within-condition decoding). No above-chance decoding was visible in the preresponse time window. Crucially, a classifier trained to decode high versus low confidence predicted information-seeking choices after the initial perceptual decision (across-condition decoding). This time window corresponds to that of a postdecisional neural marker of confidence. Collectively, our findings demonstrate, for the first time, that neural indices of confidence are functionally involved in information-seeking decisions.SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT Despite substantial current interest in neural signatures of our sense of confidence, it remains largely unknown how confidence is used to regulate behavior. Here, we devised a task in which human participants could decide whether or not to sample additional decision-relevant information at a small monetary cost. Using neural recordings, we could predict such information-seeking choices based on a neural signature of decision confidence. Our study illuminates a neural link between decision confidence and adaptive behavioral control.

In the study reported here, we examined the role of conflict experience in cognitive adaptation to conflict. Although the experience of conflict is generally neglected in theoretical models of cognitive control, we demonstrated that it plays a critical role in cognitive adaptation. Using a masked-priming paradigm, we showed that conflict adaptation was present only after trials on which participants experienced response conflict. Furthermore, when subjective experience did not coincide with actual conflict, adaptation effects in the error rates were observed after the experience of conflict, not after response conflict. We conclude that the experience of conflict, and not response conflict per se, is the crucial factor underlying cognitive adaptation effects. The current findings provide a new perspective on the question of why the human cognitive system exerts cognitive control, and they suggest that a crucial role of subjective experience is to allow for top-down control of behavior.

8When external feedback about decision outcomes is lacking, agents need to adapt their 1 9decision policies based on an internal estimate of the correctness of their choices (i.e., 2 0 decision confidence). We hypothesized that agents use confidence to continuously update 2 1 the tradeoff between the speed and accuracy of their decisions: When confidence is low in 2 2 one decision, the agent needs more evidence before committing to a choice in the next 2 3 decision, leading to slower but more accurate decisions. We tested this hypothesis by fitting 2 4a bounded accumulation decision model to behavioral data from three different perceptual 2 5 choice tasks. Decision bounds indeed depended on the reported confidence on the previous 2 6trial, independent of objective accuracy. This increase in decision bound was predicted by a 2 7centro-parietal EEG component sensitive to confidence. We conclude that the brain uses 2 8internally computed confidence signals for the ongoing adjustment of decision policies. 2 9 3

Recently, researchers have been trying to unravel the function of consciousness by exploring whether unconscious information is (in)capable of exerting cognitive control. Theoretically, cognitive control functions, such as conflict adaptation, have often been assumed to require consciousness. However, empirical evidence on conscious versus unconscious conflict adaptation is highly contradictory and hitherto, only one study reliably demonstrated adaptation to unconscious conflict. Therefore, the current study wanted to shed further light on this debated issue. A masked and unmasked version of the priming paradigm were used to create unconscious and conscious conflict trials (i.e., when prime and target trigger opposite responses). In contrast to previous studies, the Stimulus Onset Asynchrony was kept constant in both conditions and neutral trials were added to the design in order to investigate the origin of the adaptation and to investigate the specific adaptation effects. Our results showed robust conflict adaptation effects following conscious and unconscious conflict. Furthermore, our results suggest that the adaptation elicited by the conflict, is mainly an adaptation of interference, not of facilitation. We can conclude that conflict adaptation can occur after unconscious conflict, which indicates that this expression of cognitive control is most likely not an exclusive function of consciousness.

No abstract

When external feedback about decision outcomes is lacking, agents need to adapt their decision policies based on an internal estimate of the correctness of their choices (i.e., decision confidence). We hypothesized that agents use confidence to continuously update the tradeoff between the speed and accuracy of their decisions: When confidence is low in one decision, the agent needs more evidence before committing to a choice in the next decision, leading to slower but more accurate decisions. We tested this hypothesis by fitting a bounded accumulation decision model to behavioral data from three different perceptual choice tasks. Decision bounds indeed depended on the reported confidence on the previous trial, independent of objective accuracy. This increase in decision bound was predicted by a centro-parietal EEG component sensitive to confidence. We conclude that internally computed neural signals of confidence predict the ongoing adjustment of decision policies.