Confidence drives a neural confirmation bias

Rollwage, Max; Loosen, Alisa M.; Hauser, Tobias U.; Moran, Rani; Dolan, Raymond J.; Fleming, Stephen M.

doi:10.1038/s41467-020-16278-6

Cited by 132 publications

(144 citation statements)

References 56 publications

(73 reference statements)

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“…While these advantages for metacognitive agents were relatively small in size, they were robust and similar in magnitude to individual differences in performance on comparable laboratory tasks (e.g. Rollwage et al, 2020). We note that here we modelled a situation in which only two consecutive samples of evidence had to be integrated.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 66%

“…In line with empirical observations, we also modelled a situation in which confirmation bias is modulated by confidence (Rollwage et al, 2020), such that participants were relatively unbiased in their use of new evidence when less confident, but showed an enhanced confirmation bias after high confidence decisions. To mimic these signatures, we simulated a "metacognitive" agent which shows a confirmation bias when it is confident in an initial choice (confidence=1), but remains unbiased when unsure (confidence=.5):…”

Section: Modelling Behavioural Impact Of Selective Evidence Integratimentioning

confidence: 66%

“…Recent cognitive neuroscience studies have identified the selective integration of choiceconsistent information as a key mechanism underpinning this cognitive bias (Palminteri et al, 2016;Rollwage et al, 2020;Talluri et al, 2018). For instance, we recently showed that dogmatic participants were characterized by two cognitive alterations in the context of a perceptual decision-making task (Rollwage et al, 2018).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 76%

“…In studies using magnetoencephalography (MEG), we found evidence for this hypothesis, with confidence strongly modulating the extent of neural post-decision processing. Evidence accumulation was largely unbiased after low confidence decisions but displayed a confirmation bias after high confidence decisions (Rollwage et al, 2020). In other words, people appear especially resistant to corrective information when they are highly confident about a wrong decision.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 91%

“…We use simulation-based modelling to compare different evidence integration strategies and test their respective performances. Specifically, we compared unbiased evidence integration with a simple confirmation bias as well as with a confidence-driven confirmation bias (as observed empirically in Rollwage et al, 2020). Since we expected the performance of a confidence-weighted confirmation bias to depend on the reliability with which confidence judgments indicate choice accuracy, we also investigated the influence of metacognitive ability on the adaptiveness of confirmation bias.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Confirmation bias is adaptive when coupled with efficient metacognition

Rollwage

Fleming

2020

Preprint

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Selective consideration of information is a prominent feature of human behaviour, and recent studies have identified proneness to confirmation bias as a cognitive feature underlying dogmatic beliefs. While such altered information processing typically leads to detrimental performance in laboratory tasks, the ubiquitous nature of confirmation bias makes it unlikely that selective information processing is universally detrimental. Here we suggest that confirmation bias is adaptive to the extent that agents have good metacognition, and are able to seek information when they realise they are wrong. Using simulation-based modelling, we explore how the adaptiveness of holding a confirmation bias depends on such metacognitive insight. We find that the behavioural consequences of selective information processing are highly dependent on agents’ introspective abilities. Strikingly, selective information processing can even improve decision-making when compared to unbiased evidence accumulation, as long as it is accompanied by good metacognition. These results further suggest that interventions which boost people’s metacognition might be efficient in alleviating the negative effects of selective information processing.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 66%

Section: Modelling Behavioural Impact Of Selective Evidence Integratimentioning

confidence: 66%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 76%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 91%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Confirmation bias is adaptive when coupled with efficient metacognition

Rollwage

Fleming

2020

Preprint

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How celebrity status and gaze direction in ads drive visual attention to shape consumer decisions

D'Ambrogio

Werksman

Platt

et al. 2022

Psychology and Marketing

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Marketers have long used celebrity endorsement to help viewers build strong brandproduct associations. Celebrity endorsements increase brand awareness and recall, but how celebrity endorsements shape the decision process remains unclear. A wealth of research indicates that people tend to follow someone else's gaze, yet its effects in advertisements have been largely unexplored. We recruited 77 participants to investigate the effect of celebrities and gaze-cueing in advertisements on both gaze behavior and binary choices. We combined computational modeling with eye-tracking and pupillometry to identify which internal components of processing are affected by celebrity endorsement. We found that gaze-cueing and celebrity endorsement influence gaze allocation and option selection. Further, results from computational modeling, eye-tracking, and pupillometry revealed that the effect of celebrity endorsement on decisions can be explained as an offset in the starting point of an evidence accumulation process as well as changes in the rate of accumulation, thereby biasing choice.

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Extremists are more confident

Heinzelmann

Tran²

2022

Erkenn

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Metacognitive mental states are mental states about mental states. For example, I may be uncertain whether my belief is correct. In social discourse, an interlocutor’s metacognitive certainty may constitute evidence about the reliability of their testimony. For example, if a speaker is certain that their belief is correct, then we may take this as evidence in favour of their belief or its content. This paper argues that, if metacognitive certainty is genuine evidence, then it is disproportionate evidence for extreme beliefs. In support of the argument, we report findings from five studies with different participant samples, designs, and measures. These studies show that, the more extreme an agent’s belief (positive or negative), the more certain they are about it, and vice versa. This relationship might contribute to moralism, virtue signalling, and polarisation, which in turn may be epistemically and morally problematic. Therefore, we caution against taking metacognitive certainty as genuine evidence.

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Confidence drives a neural confirmation bias

Cited by 132 publications

References 56 publications

Confirmation bias is adaptive when coupled with efficient metacognition

Confirmation bias is adaptive when coupled with efficient metacognition

How celebrity status and gaze direction in ads drive visual attention to shape consumer decisions

Extremists are more confident

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