Shared neural markers of decision confidence and error detection

Area of Science:

• Cognitive Neuroscience
• Psychology
• Neuroscience

Background:

• Metacognition involves self-awareness of one's own thoughts and actions.
• Error detection and confidence judgments are key metacognitive abilities.
• The error positivity (Pe) component in EEG is a neural marker for error awareness.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the relationship between confidence judgments and error signals in human perceptual decision-making.
• To determine if the neural marker of error awareness (Pe) is modulated by subjective confidence ratings.
• To explore shared neural mechanisms underlying metacognitive evaluation.

Main Methods:

• Participants performed a dot count perceptual decision task.
• Electroencephalography (EEG) recorded brain activity, focusing on the error positivity (Pe) component.
• Subjective confidence ratings (6-point scale) were collected after each trial.
• Multivariate decoding analyses were used to examine neural markers.

Main Results:

• The error positivity (Pe) amplitude showed graded modulation by confidence, decreasing monotonically with increased confidence.
• This modulation was independent of objective decision accuracy.
• Neural markers of error detection predicted varying confidence levels in correct decisions.

Conclusions:

• Confidence and error evaluation share underlying neural mechanisms.
• The findings challenge the separation of error detection and confidence judgment in metacognitive research.
• This suggests a unified neurocognitive basis for metacognitive self-assessment.