Centre d'Economie de la Sorbonne, CNRS UMR 8174, Paris, France.
CNRS and Paris School of Economics, Paris, France.
Sci Rep. 2018 Apr 4;8(1):5602. doi: 10.1038/s41598-018-23936-9.
Learning how certain cues in our environment predict specific states of nature is an essential ability for survival. However learning typically requires external feedback, which is not always available in everyday life. One potential substitute for external feedback could be to use the confidence we have in our decisions. Under this hypothesis, if no external feedback is available, then the agents' ability to learn about predictive cues should increase with the quality of their confidence judgments (i.e. metacognitive efficiency). We tested and confirmed this novel prediction in an experimental study using a perceptual decision task. We evaluated in separate sessions the metacognitive abilities of participants (N = 65) and their abilities to learn about predictive cues. As predicted, participants with greater metacognitive abilities learned more about the cues. Knowledge of the cues improved accuracy in the perceptual task. Our results provide strong evidence that confidence plays an active role in improving learning and performance.
学习如何从我们环境中的某些线索预测特定的自然状态是生存的一项基本能力。然而，学习通常需要外部反馈，而在日常生活中并不总是能够获得外部反馈。外部反馈的一种潜在替代品可能是利用我们对决策的信心。在这种假设下，如果没有外部反馈，那么主体学习预测线索的能力应该会随着他们的信心判断的质量（即元认知效率）而提高。我们在一项使用感知决策任务的实验研究中测试并证实了这一新颖的预测。我们在单独的会议中评估了参与者的元认知能力（N=65）和他们学习预测线索的能力。正如所预测的那样，具有更高元认知能力的参与者能够更多地了解线索。对线索的了解提高了感知任务的准确性。我们的结果提供了有力的证据，表明信心在提高学习和表现方面发挥着积极作用。
