-
Nature Communications Jul 2022Humans differ in their capability to judge choice accuracy via confidence judgments. Popular signal detection theoretic measures of metacognition, such as M-ratio, do...
Humans differ in their capability to judge choice accuracy via confidence judgments. Popular signal detection theoretic measures of metacognition, such as M-ratio, do not consider the dynamics of decision making. This can be problematic if response caution is shifted to alter the tradeoff between speed and accuracy. Such shifts could induce unaccounted-for sources of variation in the assessment of metacognition. Instead, evidence accumulation frameworks consider decision making, including the computation of confidence, as a dynamic process unfolding over time. Using simulations, we show a relation between response caution and M-ratio. We then show the same pattern in human participants explicitly instructed to focus on speed or accuracy. Finally, this association between M-ratio and response caution is also present across four datasets without any reference towards speed. In contrast, when data are analyzed with a dynamic measure of metacognition, v-ratio, there is no effect of speed-accuracy tradeoff.
Topics: Decision Making; Humans; Judgment; Metacognition
PubMed: 35864100
DOI: 10.1038/s41467-022-31727-0 -
Cognition Mar 2023In a series of ten preregistered experiments (N = 2043), we investigate the effect of outcome valence on judgments of probability, negligence, and culpability - a...
In a series of ten preregistered experiments (N = 2043), we investigate the effect of outcome valence on judgments of probability, negligence, and culpability - a phenomenon sometimes labelled moral (and legal) luck. We found that harmful outcomes, when contrasted with neutral outcomes, lead to an increased perceived probability of harm ex post, and consequently, to a greater attribution of negligence and culpability. Rather than simply postulating hindsight bias (as is common), we employ a variety of empirical means to demonstrate that the outcome-driven asymmetry across perceived probabilities constitutes a systematic cognitive distortion. We then explore three distinct strategies to alleviate the hindsight bias and its downstream effects on mens rea and culpability ascriptions. Not all strategies are successful, but some prove very promising. They should, we argue, be considered in criminal jurisprudence, where distortions due to the hindsight bias are likely considerable and deeply disconcerting.
Topics: Male; Humans; Morals; Judgment; Social Perception; Bias; Probability
PubMed: 36516666
DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2022.105258 -
Neuroscience Research Apr 2024How well do we distinguish between different memory sources when the information from imagination and perception is similar? And how do metacognitive (confidence)... (Review)
Review
How well do we distinguish between different memory sources when the information from imagination and perception is similar? And how do metacognitive (confidence) judgments differ across different sources of experiences? To study these questions, we developed a reality monitoring task using semantically related words from the Deese-Roediger-McDermott (DRM) paradigm of false memories. In an orientation phase, participants either perceived word pairs or had to voluntarily imagine the second word of a word pair. In a test phase, participants viewed words and had to judge whether the paired word was previously perceived, imagined, or new. Results revealed an interaction between memory source and judgment type on both response rates and confidence judgments: reality monitoring was better for new and perceived (compared to imagined) sources, and participants often incorrectly reported imagined experiences to be perceived. Individuals exhibited similar confidence between correct imagined source judgments and incorrect imagined sources reported to be perceived. Modeling results indicated that the observed judgments were likely due to an externalizing bias (i.e., a bias to judge the memory source as perceived). Additionally, we found that overall metacognitive ability was best in the perceived source. Together, these results reveal a source-dependent effect on response rates and confidence ratings, and provide evidence that observers are surprisingly prone to externalizing biases when monitoring their own memories.
Topics: Humans; Judgment; Memory; Imagination; Mental Recall
PubMed: 38007192
DOI: 10.1016/j.neures.2023.11.007 -
Psychological Science Sep 2022One of the most robust effects in cognitive psychology is , in which judgments show a bias toward previously viewed values. However, in what is essentially the same task...
One of the most robust effects in cognitive psychology is , in which judgments show a bias toward previously viewed values. However, in what is essentially the same task as used in anchoring research, a perceptual illusion demonstrates the opposite effect of . Here, we united these two literatures, testing in two experiments with adults (total = 200) whether prior comparative decisions bias cognitive and perceptual judgments in opposing directions or whether anchoring and repulsion are two domain-general biases whose co-occurrence has so far gone undetected. We found that in both perceptual and cognitive tasks, anchoring and repulsion co-occur. Further, the direction of the bias depends on the comparison value: Distant values attract judgments, whereas nearby values repulse judgments. Because none of the leading theories for either effect account for both biases, theoretical integration is needed. As a starting point, we describe one such joint theory based on sampling models of cognition.
Topics: Adult; Bias; Cognition; Humans; Illusions; Judgment
PubMed: 35876741
DOI: 10.1177/09567976221089599 -
Scientific Reports Mar 2023Understanding actions performed by others requires us to integrate different types of information about people, scenes, objects, and their interactions. What organizing...
Understanding actions performed by others requires us to integrate different types of information about people, scenes, objects, and their interactions. What organizing dimensions does the mind use to make sense of this complex action space? To address this question, we collected intuitive similarity judgments across two large-scale sets of naturalistic videos depicting everyday actions. We used cross-validated sparse non-negative matrix factorization to identify the structure underlying action similarity judgments. A low-dimensional representation, consisting of nine to ten dimensions, was sufficient to accurately reconstruct human similarity judgments. The dimensions were robust to stimulus set perturbations and reproducible in a separate odd-one-out experiment. Human labels mapped these dimensions onto semantic axes relating to food, work, and home life; social axes relating to people and emotions; and one visual axis related to scene setting. While highly interpretable, these dimensions did not share a clear one-to-one correspondence with prior hypotheses of action-relevant dimensions. Together, our results reveal a low-dimensional set of robust and interpretable dimensions that organize intuitive action similarity judgments and highlight the importance of data-driven investigations of behavioral representations.
Topics: Humans; Pattern Recognition, Visual; Semantics; Judgment; Emotions; Human Activities
PubMed: 36997625
DOI: 10.1038/s41598-023-32192-5 -
Psychological Research Feb 2024To better understand the social determinants of conceptual knowledge we devised a task in which participants were asked to judge the match between a definition...
To better understand the social determinants of conceptual knowledge we devised a task in which participants were asked to judge the match between a definition (expressed in abstract or concrete terms) and a target-word (also either abstract or concrete). The task was presented in the form of a competition that could/could not include an opponent, and in which different percentages of response rounds were assigned to the participant at the experimenter's discretion. Thus, depending on the condition, participants were either exposed to a competitive context mimicking a privileged/unprivileged interaction with the experimenter or to a socially neutral setting. Results showed that manipulation of the social context selectively affected judgments on abstract stimuli: responses were significantly slower whenever a definition and/or a target word were presented in abstract form and when participants were in the favorable condition of responding in most of the trials. Moreover, only when processing abstract material, responses were slower when an opponent was expected to be present. Data are discussed in the frame of the different cognitive engagements involved when treating abstract and concrete concepts as well as in relation to the possible motivational factors prompted by the experimental set-up. The role of social context as a crucial element for abstract knowledge processing is also considered.
Topics: Humans; Concept Formation; Social Environment; Knowledge; Motivation; Judgment
PubMed: 37268790
DOI: 10.1007/s00426-023-01843-7 -
Medicine, Health Care, and Philosophy Jun 2020Decision-making capacity (DMC) is the gatekeeping element for a patient's right to self-determination with regard to medical decisions. A DMC evaluation is not only...
Decision-making capacity (DMC) is the gatekeeping element for a patient's right to self-determination with regard to medical decisions. A DMC evaluation is not only conducted on descriptive grounds but is an inherently normative task including ethical reasoning. Therefore, it is dependent to a considerable extent on the values held by the clinicians involved in the DMC evaluation. Dealing with the question of how to reasonably support clinicians in arriving at a DMC judgment, a new tool is presented that fundamentally differs from existing ones: the U-Doc. By putting greater emphasis on the judgmental process rather than on the measurement of mental abilities, the clinician as a decision-maker is brought into focus, rendering the tool more of an evaluation guide than a test instrument. In a qualitative study, the perceived benefits of and difficulties with the tool have been explored. The findings show on the one hand that the evaluation aid provides basic orientation, supports a holistic perspective on the patient, sensitizes for ethical considerations and personal biases, and helps to think through the decision, to argue, and to justify one's judgment. On the other hand, the room for interpretation due to absent operationalisations, related ambiguities, and the confrontation with one's own subjectivity may be experienced as unsettling.
Topics: Decision Making; Decision Support Techniques; Humans; Judgment; Mental Competency; Personal Autonomy; Professional-Patient Relations
PubMed: 32350707
DOI: 10.1007/s11019-019-09930-6 -
Trends in Cognitive Sciences Dec 2021The dominant theory of facial attractiveness judgments is that they evolved to identify healthy individuals with strong immune systems. Here, we summarize results of...
The dominant theory of facial attractiveness judgments is that they evolved to identify healthy individuals with strong immune systems. Here, we summarize results of recent tests of this hypothesis, concluding that it has little compelling empirical support. We then propose an alternative perspective that emphasizes the effects of lifestyle health.
Topics: Beauty; Face; Humans; Immunocompetence; Judgment
PubMed: 34625347
DOI: 10.1016/j.tics.2021.09.003 -
Nature Human Behaviour Jan 2022A goal of computational psychiatry is to ground symptoms in basic mechanisms. Theory suggests that avoidance in anxiety disorders may reflect dysregulated mental...
A goal of computational psychiatry is to ground symptoms in basic mechanisms. Theory suggests that avoidance in anxiety disorders may reflect dysregulated mental simulation, a process for evaluating candidate actions. If so, these covert processes should have observable consequences: choices reflecting increased and biased deliberation. In two online general population samples, we examined how self-report symptoms of social anxiety disorder predict choices in a socially framed reinforcement learning task, the patent race, in which the pattern of choices reflects the content of deliberation. Using a computational model to assess learning strategy, we found that self-report social anxiety was indeed associated with increased deliberative evaluation. This effect was stronger for a particular subset of feedback ('upward counterfactual') in one of the experiments, broadly matching the biased content of rumination in social anxiety disorder, and robust to controlling for other psychiatric symptoms. These results suggest a grounding of symptoms of social anxiety disorder in more basic neuro-computational mechanisms.
Topics: Adult; Anxiety; Female; Games, Experimental; Humans; Judgment; Male; Middle Aged; Young Adult
PubMed: 34400815
DOI: 10.1038/s41562-021-01180-y -
Medical Law Review Nov 2023For many purposes in England and Wales, the Court of Protection determines whether a person has or lacks capacity to make a decision, by applying the test within the... (Review)
Review
For many purposes in England and Wales, the Court of Protection determines whether a person has or lacks capacity to make a decision, by applying the test within the Mental Capacity Act 2005. This test is regularly described as a cognitive test with cognitive processes discussed as internal characteristics. However, it is unclear how the courts have framed interpersonal influence as negatively impacting upon a person's decision-making processes in a capacity assessment context. We reviewed published court judgments in England and Wales in which interpersonal problems were discussed as relevant to capacity. Through content analysis, we developed a typology that highlights five ways the courts considered influence to be problematic to capacity across these cases. Interpersonal influence problems were constructed as (i) P's inability to preserve their free will or independence, (ii) restricting P's perspective, (iii) valuing or dependence on a relationship, (iv) acting on a general suggestibility to influence, or (v) P denying facts about the relationship. These supposed mechanisms of interpersonal influence problems are poorly understood and clearly merit further consideration. Our typology and case discussion are a start towards more detailed practice guidelines, and raise questions as to whether mental capacity and influence should remain legally distinct.
Topics: Humans; Judgment; England; Wales; Mental Competency; Decision Making
PubMed: 37295959
DOI: 10.1093/medlaw/fwad017