Multifaceted confidence in exploratory choice.

Area of Science:

• Cognitive Psychology
• Neuroscience
• Decision Science

Background:

• Decision-making often involves a trade-off between immediate gratification and long-term benefits, known as exploration-exploitation.
• Confidence in choices is typically high, but its accuracy depends on the specific goals being pursued.
• Exploratory choices, which prioritize learning over immediate reward, may influence confidence judgments differently for short-term versus long-term outcomes.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate whether confidence judgments after an exploratory choice differ for immediate versus total rewards.
• To test the hypothesis that individuals are more confident in the long-term benefits of exploratory choices than their immediate consequences.

Main Methods:

• Conducted two experiments with 250 participants performing a varying-horizon two-arm bandits task.
• Participants made choices involving potential immediate gains versus learning about future rewards.
• Assessed participants' confidence in their choices regarding immediate reward and total reward.

Main Results:

• Confirmed previous findings of increased exploration with a longer trial horizon.
• Contrary to predictions, no significant difference was found in confidence ratings between immediate and total reward.
• Observed a dissociation between choice behavior and confidence judgments.

Conclusions:

• The findings suggest that confidence judgments are not differentiated based on whether they pertain to immediate or cumulative rewards after exploratory decisions.
• This dissociation provides further evidence for distinct neural and cognitive mechanisms underlying choice selection and confidence assessment.
• The study contributes to understanding the complex interplay between exploration, exploitation, and metacognitive judgments in decision-making.