Making precise movements increases confidence in perceptual decisions

Area of Science:

• Cognitive Psychology
• Neuroscience
• Decision Science

Background:

• Perceptual decision-making often lacks explicit feedback, necessitating confidence judgments for guiding actions.
• Motor responses play a role in modulating decision confidence, with two main hypotheses proposed: fluency and monitoring.
• The fluency hypothesis suggests response ease enhances confidence, while the monitoring hypothesis posits heightened action monitoring boosts confidence.

Purpose of the Study:

• To empirically test the competing fluency and monitoring hypotheses of decision confidence.
• To investigate the influence of motor response precision on retrospective confidence in perceptual tasks.

Main Methods:

• A pre-registered experiment was conducted involving a perceptual task requiring Gabor patch orientation discrimination.
• Motor response precision was manipulated by varying the size of target circles for mouse-based responses (high vs. low precision).

Main Results:

• Contrary to the fluency hypothesis, higher confidence was reported in trials requiring higher motor precision (smaller circles).
• Increased confidence with higher precision occurred without changes in perceptual accuracy.
• Findings support the monitoring hypothesis, indicating action monitoring influences confidence.

Conclusions:

• The degree of action monitoring during response execution significantly influences retrospective decision confidence.
• Response precision, rather than mere response fluency, appears to be a key factor in modulating confidence.
• This research provides critical insights into the mechanisms underlying confidence judgments in perceptual decision-making.