title: Does interaction matter? Testing whether a confidence heuristic can replace interaction in collective decision-making.
abstract: In a range of contexts, individuals arrive at collective decisions by sharing confidence in their judgements. This tendency to evaluate the reliability of information by the confidence with which it is expressed has been termed the 'confidence heuristic'. We tested two ways of implementing the confidence heuristic in the context of a collective perceptual decision-making task: either directly, by opting for the judgement made with higher confidence, or indirectly, by opting for the faster judgement, exploiting an inverse correlation between confidence and reaction time. We found that the success of these heuristics depends on how similar individuals are in terms of the reliability of their judgements and, more importantly, that for dissimilar individuals such heuristics are dramatically inferior to interaction. Interaction allows individuals to alleviate, but not fully resolve, differences in the reliability of their judgements. We discuss the implications of these findings for models of confidence and collective decision-making.
authors.affiliation: Interacting Minds Centre, Aarhus University, Jens Chr. Skous Vej 4, Building 1483, 8000 Aarhus, Denmark; Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford, South Parks Road, Oxford OX1 3UD, United Kingdom; Calleva Research Centre for Evolution and Human Sciences, Magdalen College, High Street, Oxford OX1 4AU, United Kingdom. Electronic address: danbang.db@gmail.com.
authors.forename: Dan
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Bang
authors.affiliation: Interacting Minds Centre, Aarhus University, Jens Chr. Skous Vej 4, Building 1483, 8000 Aarhus, Denmark; Center for Semiotics, Aarhus University, Jens Chr. Skous Vej 2, Building 1484, 8000 Aarhus, Denmark.
authors.forename: Riccardo
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Fusaroli
authors.affiliation: Interacting Minds Centre, Aarhus University, Jens Chr. Skous Vej 4, Building 1483, 8000 Aarhus, Denmark; Center for Semiotics, Aarhus University, Jens Chr. Skous Vej 2, Building 1484, 8000 Aarhus, Denmark.
authors.forename: Kristian
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Tylén
authors.affiliation: Interacting Minds Centre, Aarhus University, Jens Chr. Skous Vej 4, Building 1483, 8000 Aarhus, Denmark.
authors.forename: Karsten
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Olsen
authors.affiliation: Gatsby Computational Neuroscience Unit, UCL, 17 Queen Square, London WC1N 3AR, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Peter E
authors.initials: PE
authors.lastname: Latham
authors.affiliation: Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford, South Parks Road, Oxford OX1 3UD, United Kingdom; Calleva Research Centre for Evolution and Human Sciences, Magdalen College, High Street, Oxford OX1 4AU, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Jennifer Y F
authors.initials: JY
authors.lastname: Lau
authors.affiliation: Interacting Minds Centre, Aarhus University, Jens Chr. Skous Vej 4, Building 1483, 8000 Aarhus, Denmark.
authors.forename: Andreas
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Roepstorff
authors.affiliation: Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, UCL, 17 Queen Square, London WC1N 3AR, United Kingdom; Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging, UCL, 12 Queen Square, London WC1N 3BG, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Geraint
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Rees
authors.affiliation: Interacting Minds Centre, Aarhus University, Jens Chr. Skous Vej 4, Building 1483, 8000 Aarhus, Denmark; Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging, UCL, 12 Queen Square, London WC1N 3BG, United Kingdom; All Souls College, University of Oxford, High Street, Oxford OX1 4AL, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Chris D
authors.initials: CD
authors.lastname: Frith
authors.affiliation: Interacting Minds Centre, Aarhus University, Jens Chr. Skous Vej 4, Building 1483, 8000 Aarhus, Denmark; Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, UCL, 17 Queen Square, London WC1N 3AR, United Kingdom; Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging, UCL, 12 Queen Square, London WC1N 3BG, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Bahador
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Bahrami
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D003657:Decision Making / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D007398:Interpersonal Relations; D007600:Judgment / Q000502:physiology*; D008297:Male; D017008:Negotiating / Q000523:psychology; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Collective decision-making; Computational; Confidence; Heuristic; Interaction; Metacognition; Perception; Reaction time; Signal detection theory