The Influence of Endogenous and Exogenous Spatial Attention on Decision Confidence

Abstract

Spatial attention allows us to make more accurate decisions about events in our environment. Decision confidence is thought to be intimately linked to the decision making process as confidence ratings are tightly coupled to decision accuracy. While both spatial attention and decision confidence have been subjected to extensive research, surprisingly little is known about the interaction between these two processes. Since attention increases performance it might be expected that confidence would also increase. However, two studies investigating the effects of endogenous attention on decision confidence found contradictory results. Here we investigated the effects of two distinct forms of spatial attention on decision confidence; endogenous attention and exogenous attention. We used an orientation-matching task, comparing the two attention conditions (endogenous and exogenous) to a control condition without directed attention. Participants performed better under both attention conditions than in the control condition. Higher confidence ratings than the control condition were found under endogenous attention but not under exogenous attention. This finding suggests that while attention can increase confidence ratings, it must be voluntarily deployed for this increase to take place. We discuss possible implications of this relative overconfidence found only during endogenous attention with respect to the theoretical background of decision confidence.

Humans incorporate attention-dependent uncertainty into perceptual decisions and confidence

“…Two studies found that voluntary attention increased confidence 27,28 ; one found that voluntary but not involuntary attention increased confidence 30 ; and another found no effect of voluntary attention on confidence 29 . This last result has been attributed to response speed pressures 27,30 . Three other studies suggested an inverse relation between attention and confidence, though these used rather different attention manipulations and measures.…”

“…Perhaps, for example, performance of the Bayesian model was superior not because observers changed their categorization behavior, but because they rated their confidence based on the attention condition, which they knew explicitly. Given the mixed findings on the relation between attention and confidence [27][28][29][30] , and the proposal that perceptual decisions do not account for attention 13 , such a finding would not be trivial (see Discussion); but it would warrant a different interpretation than if category decision boundaries also depended on attention. We fit the four models to the category choice data only and again rejected the Fixed model (Figure S5a,b; Tables S3, S4).…”

Humans incorporate attention-dependent uncertainty into perceptual decisions and confidence

“…Perhaps, for example, performance of the Bayesian model was superior not because observers changed their categorization behavior but because they rated their confidence based on the attention condition, which they knew explicitly. Given the mixed findings on the relation between attention and confidence (30)(31)(32)(33) and the proposal that perceptual decisions do not account for attention (13), such a finding would not be trivial (see Discussion), but it would warrant a different interpretation than if category decision boundaries also depended on attention. We fit the four models to the category choice data only and again rejected the Fixed model (SI Appendix, Fig.…”

“…Despite attention's large influence on visual perception (8), only a handful of studies have examined its influence on visual confidence, with mixed results. Two studies found that voluntary attention increased confidence (30,31), one found that voluntary but not involuntary attention increased confidence (33), and another found no effect of voluntary attention on confidence (32). This last result has been attributed to response speed pressures (30,33).…”

Psychophysical evaluation of individual low-level feature influences on visual attention

“…Distinctive studies have also concluded that task priors are decisive in that respect [Buswell, 1935] [Navalpakkam and Itti, 2005] [Tatler et al, 2006] [Castelhano et al, 2009] [Greene et al, 2012] [Borji and Itti, 2014]. Goal-directed tasks proved to be able to condition eye movement behavior enhancing visual attention processing [Posner, 1980] [Jonides, 1981] [Huk and Heeger, 2000] [Kurtz et al, 2017]. That might suggest that visual search tasks could minimize such eye-movement patterns produced by endogenous top-down mechanisms [Horowitz and Wolfe, 1998] , by increasing induced attention towards salient targets (combining both saliency and relevance to influence eye guidance towards these regions).…”