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Confidence measurement in the light of signal detection theory
Sébastien Massoni1, Thibault Gajdos2, Jean-Christophe Vergnaud3
1Queensland Behavioural Economics Group - School of Economics and Finance, Queensland University of Technology Brisbane, QLD, Australia.
Abstract:
We compare three alternative methods for eliciting retrospective confidence in the context of a simple perceptual task: the Simple Confidence Rating (a direct report on a numerical scale), the Quadratic Scoring Rule (a post-wagering procedure), and the Matching Probability (MP; a generalization of the no-loss gambling method). We systematically compare the results obtained with these three rules to the theoretical confidence levels that can be inferred from performance in the perceptual task using Signal Detection Theory (SDT). We find that the MP provides better results in that respect. We conclude that MP is particularly well suited for studies of confidence that use SDT as a theoretical framework.
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