title: You'd better think twice: post-decision perceptual confidence.
abstract: Current findings suggest that confidence emerges only after decision making. However, the temporal and neural dynamics of the emergence of post-decision confidence--a metacognitive judgement--are not fully explored. To gain insight into the dynamics of post-decision confidence processing and to disentangle the processes underlying confidence judgements and decision making, we applied a tactile discrimination task during functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Our results revealed that reaction times to post-decision confidence depend on the level of confidence, suggesting that post-decision confidence in a perceptual choice is not processed in parallel to perceptual decision making. Moreover, we demonstrated by the parametric analysis of fMRI data that post-decisionally modelled confidence processing can be distinguished from processes related to decision making through anatomical location and through the pattern of neural activity. In contrast to perceptual decision making, post-decision confidence appears to be strictly allocated to a prefrontal network of brain regions, primarily the anterior and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, areas that have been related to metacognition. Moreover, the processes underlying decision making and post-decision confidence may share recruitment of the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, although the former probably has distinct functions with regard to processing of perceptual choices and post-decision confidence. Thus, this is the first fMRI study to disentangle the processes underlying post-decision confidence and decision making on behavioural, neuroanatomical, and neurofunctional levels. With regard to the temporal evolution of post-decision confidence, results of the present study provide strong support for the most recent theoretical models of human perceptual decision making, and thus provide implications for investigating confidence in perceptual paradigms.
authors.affiliation: Hans Berger Department of Neurology, Jena University Hospital, Friedrich Schiller University, 07743 Jena, Germany; Department of Pediatrics, HELIOS Children's Hospital Wuppertal, Witten/Herdecke University, 42283 Wuppertal, Germany. Electronic address: Raphael.Hilgenstock@helios-kliniken.de.
authors.forename: Raphael
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Hilgenstock
authors.affiliation: Department of Biological and Clinical Psychology, Friedrich Schiller University, 07743 Jena, Germany.
authors.forename: Thomas
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Weiss
authors.affiliation: Hans Berger Department of Neurology, Jena University Hospital, Friedrich Schiller University, 07743 Jena, Germany; Center for Sepsis Control and Care, Jena University Hospital, Friedrich Schiller University, 07743 Jena, Germany.
authors.forename: Otto W
authors.initials: OW
authors.lastname: Witte
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001931:Brain Mapping; D002755:Choice Behavior / Q000502:physiology; D003657:Decision Making / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging / Q000379:methods; D008297:Male; D008959:Models, Neurological; D009415:Nerve Net / Q000502:physiology; D009949:Orientation / Q000502:physiology; D010465:Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D011597:Psychomotor Performance / Q000502:physiology; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000502:physiology; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: anterior prefrontal cortex; fMRI; grating orientation task; metacognition; perceptual decision making; post-decision confidence