The Effect of Confidence Rating on a Primary Visual Task

Abstract

The current study explored the influence of confidence rating on visual acuity. We used brief exposures of the Landolt gap discrimination task, probing the primary visual ability to detect contrast. During 200 practice trials, participants in the Confidence Rating group rated their response-confidence in each trial. A second (Time Delay) group received a short break at the end of each trial, equivalent to the average rating response time of the Confidence Rating group. The third (Standard Task) group performed the Landolt gap task in its original form. During practice, the Confidence Rating group developed an efficient monitoring ability indicated by a significant correlation between accuracy and confidence rating and a moderate calibration index score. Following practice, all groups performed 400 identical test trials of the standard Landolt gap task. In the test trials, the Confidence Rating group responded more accurately than the control groups, though it did not differ from them in response time for correct answers. Remarkably, the Confidence Rating group was significantly slower when making errors, compared the control groups. An interaction in learning efficiency occurred: the Confidence Rating group significantly improved its reaction times after the initial practice, as compared to both control groups. The findings demonstrate an effect of confidence rating on the formation of processing and response strategies, which granted participants significant benefits in later performance.

Among the Two Kinds of Metacognitive Evaluation, Only One Is Predictive of Illusory Object Perception

“…This in turn feeds confidence in visual discrimination. The latter assumption is supported by the well-known regularity whereby behavioral perceptual accuracy positively correlates with metacognitive confidence about task performance (Bonder & Gopher, 2019;Fleming et al, 2010;Rahnev & Fleming, 2019;Shen & Ma, 2019).…”

“…The second hypothesis assumed that the higher one's self-evaluation of his/her performance in the perceptual task, the higher one's confidence in the correctness of this self-evaluation. This hypothesis was put forth based on common intuition and some data about a general selfconfidence factor predictable by accuracy of performance in a variety of perceptual and other tasks (Bonder & Gopher, 2019;Burns, Burns, & Ward, 2016;Faivre et al, 2018;Kleitman & Stankov, 2007). We predicted a connection between the subjective estimate of the level of correctness in the perceptual task and the level of general self-confidence about how reliable these former estimates were: we assumed that a person is more likely to be unsure of his/her performance estimation when the estimated level of performance was low, whereas confidence in self-evaluation increases with the estimated level of performance in the perception task.…”

“…The first hypothesis assumes that illusory perception exemplified by expectation based hallucinations has no correlation with confidence. (This is despite the fact that objective correctness of perception of actually presented stimuli is positively correlated with confidence in the clearly above-threshold range of objective performance—e.g., Bonder & Gopher, 2019; Fleming et al., 2010; Rahnev & Fleming, 2019; Rausch & Zehetleitner, 2018; Shen & Ma, 2019; however, see Koriat, 2018; McIntosh et al., 2019.) This hypothesis has two sources.…”

Pathway and directional specificity of Hebbian plasticity induction in the cortical visual motion processing network

“…Furthermore, BW ccPAS significantly improved motion awareness, as evidenced by the increased metacognitive confidence rating, confirming the role of this pathway for motion awareness (Pascual-Leone et al 2001; Silvanto et al 2005). Of note, confidence rating has been shown to influence visual discrimination (Bonder et al, 2019). Therefore, we cannot infer whether ccPAS exerted its effects directly on motion perception, which then impacted on the confidence rating or whether it is the opposite.…”

Progressing the Development of a Collaborative Metareasoning Framework: Prospects and Challenges

“…There is only a relatively limited body of experimental evidence that has directly addressed the reactive effect of probing confidence on individual object-level reasoning, with much of the research tending to examine the reactivity of eliciting retrospective confidence judgments on decision time and performance accuracy in studies involving repeated trials. Intriguingly, the relevant studies that have been conducted to date provide evidence both for the idea that metacognitive confidence judgments are reactive (e.g., Baranski and Petrusic 2001 ; Bonder and Gopher 2019 ; Double and Birney 2017 , 2018 , 2019a ; Lei et al 2020 ; Petrusic and Baranski 2003 ; Schoenherr et al 2010 ), as well as against this idea (e.g., Ackerman 2014 ; Ackerman and Goldsmith 2008 ; Ackerman et al 2020 ).…”