[Confidence and accuracy of mental judgments]

Area of Science:

• Cognitive psychology
• Decision-making research

Background:

• Assessing metacognitive accuracy is crucial for understanding judgment and decision-making.
• Previous research indicates varying levels of self-awareness in cognitive tasks.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the calibration of confidence in relation to actual performance on general knowledge and future event prediction tasks.
• To explore the factors influencing metacognitive judgments and identify potential biases.

Main Methods:

• Participants answered general knowledge and future event questions, rated their confidence, and estimated peer performance.
• Analysis focused on the relationship between subjective confidence and objective accuracy (hit-rate).

Main Results:

• Good calibration (confidence matched accuracy) was observed for general knowledge and familiar future events.
• Poor calibration was found for accidental future events, with confidence exceeding accuracy.
• A tendency for participants to rate their own judgment ability as superior to the average was identified.

Conclusions:

• Knowledge availability positively impacts metacognitive calibration.
• Distinct judgment models may be employed for different types of tasks.
• The "self-superiority phenomenon" highlights a common cognitive bias in self-assessment.