Cos Ignasi, Senel Gizem, Maldonado Pedro E, Moreno-Bote Rubén
Center for Brain and Cognition & Department of Information and Communication Technologies, Pompeu Fabra University, Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain.
Facultat de Matemàtiques i Informàtica, Universitat de Barcelona, Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain.
PLoS One. 2025 Jul 7;20(7):e0310231. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0310231. eCollection 2025.
How does confidence relate to oculomotor dynamics during decision-making? Do oculomotor dynamics reflect deliberation and the buildup of confidence in the absence of visual stimuli? Here we examine the hypothesis that working memory, deliberation, and confidence warp oculomotor dynamics, both in the presence and absence of visual stimuli. We analyzed oculomotor dynamics in a decision-making task in which participants were provided with an abstract context in which to make the decision, and two similar option images which became eventually invisible. We show that fixations between the empty locations in which the images were formerly shown continued after the options disappeared, consistently with a sustained deliberative process facilitated by oculomotor dynamics. Both, oculomotor dynamics and decision patterns remained unchanged regardless of whether the stimuli were visible. Furthermore, our analyses show that the number of alternating fixations between stimuli correlated negatively with the confidence reported after each decision, while the observation time of the selected target correlated positively. Given that decisions in our experimental paradigm are reported in the absence of the stimuli, this suggests a relationship between evidence retrieval from working memory, confidence gathering and oculomotor dynamics. Finally, we performed a model comparison based on predictions from drift-diffusion models to assess the relationship between sequential fixations between images, deliberation and confidence gathering, and the ensuing choice. These analyses supported confidence as a contributing cognitive process encompassing serial evidence-gathering and parallel option consideration during decision-making.
在决策过程中，信心与眼球运动动力学有怎样的关系？在没有视觉刺激的情况下，眼球运动动力学是否反映了思考过程以及信心的建立？在此，我们检验这样一个假设：无论有无视觉刺激，工作记忆、思考过程和信心都会扭曲眼球运动动力学。我们在一项决策任务中分析了眼球运动动力学，在该任务中，为参与者提供了一个用于决策的抽象情境，以及两张最终会消失的相似选项图片。我们发现，在选项消失后，之前显示图片的空白位置之间的注视仍在继续，这与由眼球运动动力学促进的持续思考过程一致。无论刺激是否可见，眼球运动动力学和决策模式都保持不变。此外，我们的分析表明，刺激之间交替注视的次数与每次决策后报告的信心呈负相关，而所选目标的观察时间与信心呈正相关。鉴于我们实验范式中的决策是在没有刺激的情况下报告的，这表明从工作记忆中检索证据、收集信心和眼球运动动力学之间存在关联。最后，我们基于漂移扩散模型的预测进行了模型比较，以评估图像之间的连续注视、思考过程和信心收集以及随后的选择之间的关系。这些分析支持了信心作为一种重要的认知过程，它在决策过程中包括串行证据收集和平行选项考虑。
