Flexible use of confidence to guide advice requests

Subjective confidence plays an important role in guiding behavior, for example, people typically commit to decisions immediately if high in confidence and seek additional information if not. The present study examines whether people are flexible in their use of confidence, such that the mapping between confidence and behavior is not fixed but can instead vary depending on the specific context. To investigate this proposal, we tested the hypothesis that the seemingly natural relationship between low confidence and requesting advice varies according to whether people know, or do not know, the quality of the advice. Participants made an initial perceptual judgement and then chose between re-sampling evidence or receiving advice from a virtual advisor, before committing to a final decision. The results indicated that, when objective information about advisor reliability was not available, participants selected advice more often when their confidence was high rather than when it was low. This pattern reflects the use of confidence as a feedback proxy to learn about advisor quality: Participants were able to learn about the reliability of advice even in the absence of feedback and subsequently requested more advice from better advisors. In contrast, when participants had prior knowledge about the reliability of advisors, they requested advice more often when their confidence was low, reflecting the use of confidence as a self-monitoring tool signaling that help should be solicited. These findings indicate that people use confidence in a way that is context-dependent and directed towards achieving their current goals.