Neurophysiology of perceived confidence

Area of Science:

• Cognitive Neuroscience
• Neuroscience
• Psychology

Background:

• The partial report paradigm involves brief visual presentation followed by subset recall.
• Objective performance and subjective confidence are often decoupled in this task.
• This paradigm is valuable for studying the neural basis of confidence construction.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate electroencephalography (EEG) responses indicative of subjective confidence.
• To identify neural markers associated with subjective confidence, independent of objective performance.
• To explore the potential of EEG decoding for inferring internal mental states.

Main Methods:

• High-density EEG recordings were used during a partial report task.
• Analysis focused on identifying EEG components correlating with subjective confidence.
• Examined early (encoding) and late (retrieval) stages of information processing.

Main Results:

• An early EEG response during information encoding showed a partial correlation with confidence.
• A late, N400-like waveform during retrieval significantly determined subjective confidence.
• EEG markers were identified that reflect subjective confidence, separate from task performance.

Conclusions:

• Subjective confidence is primarily constructed during the retrieval phase, reflected in late EEG activity.
• EEG signals can serve as markers for accessing internal, subjective mental states.
• Decoding methods applied to EEG data hold promise for inferring subjective states.