Locke Shannon M, Gaffin-Cahn Elon, Hosseinizaveh Nadia, Mamassian Pascal, Landy Michael S
Department of Psychology, New York University, New York, NY, USA.
Laboratoire des Systèmes Perceptifs, Département d'Études Cognitives, École Normale Supérieure, PSL University, CNRS, 29 rue d'Ulm, 75005, Paris, France.
Atten Percept Psychophys. 2020 Aug;82(6):3158-3175. doi: 10.3758/s13414-020-02018-x.
Priors and payoffs are known to affect perceptual decision-making, but little is understood about how they influence confidence judgments. For optimal perceptual decision-making, both priors and payoffs should be considered when selecting a response. However, for confidence to reflect the probability of being correct in a perceptual decision, priors should affect confidence but payoffs should not. To experimentally test whether human observers follow this normative behavior for natural confidence judgments, we conducted an orientation-discrimination task with varied priors and payoffs that probed both perceptual and metacognitive decision-making. The placement of discrimination and confidence criteria were examined according to several plausible Signal Detection Theory models. In the normative model, observers use the optimal discrimination criterion (i.e., the criterion that maximizes expected gain) and confidence criteria that shift with the discrimination criterion that maximizes accuracy (i.e., are not affected by payoffs). No observer was consistent with this model, with the majority exhibiting non-normative confidence behavior. One subset of observers ignored both priors and payoffs for confidence, always fixing the confidence criteria around the neutral discrimination criterion. The other group of observers incorrectly incorporated payoffs into their confidence by always shifting their confidence criteria with the same gains-maximizing criterion used for discrimination. Such metacognitive mistakes could have negative consequences outside the laboratory setting, particularly when priors or payoffs are not matched for all the possible decision alternatives.
已知先验概率和收益会影响感知决策，但对于它们如何影响信心判断却知之甚少。为了实现最优的感知决策，在选择反应时应同时考虑先验概率和收益。然而，为了使信心反映感知决策中正确的概率，先验概率应影响信心，而收益则不应如此。为了通过实验测试人类观察者在自然信心判断中是否遵循这种规范行为，我们进行了一项方向辨别任务，其中先验概率和收益各不相同，该任务探究了感知决策和元认知决策。根据几种合理的信号检测理论模型，对辨别标准和信心标准的设定进行了检验。在规范模型中，观察者使用最优辨别标准（即最大化预期收益的标准）以及随着最大化准确性的辨别标准而变化的信心标准（即不受收益影响）。没有观察者与该模型一致，大多数观察者表现出非规范的信心行为。一部分观察者在信心判断时忽略了先验概率和收益，总是将信心标准固定在中性辨别标准附近。另一组观察者则错误地将收益纳入他们的信心判断中，总是使用与用于辨别时相同的最大化收益标准来改变他们的信心标准。这种元认知错误在实验室环境之外可能会产生负面后果，特别是当先验概率或收益与所有可能的决策选项不匹配时。
