Confidence in consciousness research

Abstract

To study (un)conscious perception and test hypotheses about consciousness, researchers need procedures for determining whether subjects consciously perceive stimuli or not. This article is an introduction to a family of procedures called 'confidence-based procedures', which consist in interpreting metacognitive indicators as indicators of consciousness. I assess the validity and accuracy of these procedures, and answer a series of common objections to their use in consciousness research. I conclude that confidence-based procedures are valid for assessing consciousness, and, in most cases, accurate enough for our practical and scientific purposes.

Generalized Gaussian signal detection theory: A unified signal detection framework for confidence data analysis.

“…The meta-SDT posits that objective decision and confidence rating are based on different sets of internal distributions (hereafter called Type-1 and Type-2 distributions). Here, confidence rating is considered a metacognitive estimate regarding the certainty of one’s own decision correctness (e.g., Mamassian, 2016; Michel, 2023; see also Adler & Ma, 2018; Pouget et al, 2016). This constitutes a stark distinction from the classic SDT, which assumes a common set of distributions for objective decision and confidence rating.…”

“…While successful behavioral guidance rests on the confidence’s predictability of decision correctness (i.e., metacognitive accuracy), studies have accumulated rich evidence indicating their potential dissociations (e.g., Komura et al, 2013; Maniscalco & Lau, 2015; Miyamoto et al, 2017; Rounis et al, 2010; Weiskrantz et al, 1974). These dissociations have attracted growing attention in recent years since unraveling their possible causes is expected to provide a breakthrough in broad areas of behavioral science (e.g., Hoven et al, 2019; Michel, 2023; Peters, 2022; Rouault et al, 2018; Rouy et al, 2021).…”

GGSDT: A unified signal detection framework for confidence data analysis

“…The meta-SDT posits that objective decision and confidence rating are based on different sets of internal distributions (hereafter called type-1 and type-2 distributions). Here, confidence rating is considered a metacognitive estimate regarding the certainty of one’s own decision correctness (e.g., Mamassian, 2016; Michel, 2022; see also Adler & Ma, 2018; Pouget et al, 2016). This constitutes a stark distinction from the classic SDT, which assumes a common set of distributions for objective decision and confidence rating.…”

“…While successful behavioral guidance rests on the confidence’s predictability of decision correctness (i.e., metacognitive accuracy), studies have accumulated rich evidence indicating their potential dissociations (e.g., Komura et al, 2013; Maniscalco & Lau, 2015; Miyamoto et al, 2017; Rounis et al, 2010; Weiskrantz, 1974). These dissociations have attracted growing attention in recent years since unraveling their possible causes is expected to provide a breakthrough in broad areas of behavioral science (e.g., Hoven et al, 2019; Michel, 2022; Peters, 2022; Rouault et al, 2018; Rouy et al, 2021).…”

Neural Signatures of Evidence Accumulation Encode Subjective Perceptual Confidence

“…Moreover, confidence has played an important role in theorizing about conscious perception with some arguing that perceptual awareness involves a meta-cognitive component akin to introspection (Brown et al, 2019;Y. Ko & Lau, 2012) and that confidence judgments can sometimes signal the presence of conscious perception better than the ability to make correct perceptual choices (Michel, 2022).…”