Title |
Selective Attention Increases Choice Certainty in Human Decision Making
|
---|---|
Published in |
PLOS ONE, July 2012
|
DOI | 10.1371/journal.pone.0041136 |
Pubmed ID | |
Authors |
Leopold Zizlsperger, Thomas Sauvigny, Thomas Haarmeier |
Abstract |
Choice certainty is a probabilistic estimate of past performance and expected outcome. In perceptual decisions the degree of confidence correlates closely with choice accuracy and reaction times, suggesting an intimate relationship to objective performance. Here we show that spatial and feature-based attention increase human subjects' certainty more than accuracy in visual motion discrimination tasks. Our findings demonstrate for the first time a dissociation of choice accuracy and certainty with a significantly stronger influence of voluntary top-down attention on subjective performance measures than on objective performance. These results reveal a so far unknown mechanism of the selection process implemented by attention and suggest a unique biological valence of choice certainty beyond a faithful reflection of the decision process. |
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Country | Count | As % |
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Egypt | 2 | 29% |
France | 1 | 14% |
United Kingdom | 1 | 14% |
Unknown | 3 | 43% |
Demographic breakdown
Type | Count | As % |
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Members of the public | 5 | 71% |
Scientists | 1 | 14% |
Practitioners (doctors, other healthcare professionals) | 1 | 14% |
Mendeley readers
Geographical breakdown
Country | Count | As % |
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Japan | 1 | 1% |
United States | 1 | 1% |
Pakistan | 1 | 1% |
Germany | 1 | 1% |
Unknown | 88 | 96% |
Demographic breakdown
Readers by professional status | Count | As % |
---|---|---|
Student > Ph. D. Student | 20 | 22% |
Researcher | 15 | 16% |
Student > Master | 9 | 10% |
Student > Doctoral Student | 8 | 9% |
Student > Bachelor | 8 | 9% |
Other | 17 | 18% |
Unknown | 15 | 16% |
Readers by discipline | Count | As % |
---|---|---|
Psychology | 36 | 39% |
Neuroscience | 8 | 9% |
Medicine and Dentistry | 7 | 8% |
Agricultural and Biological Sciences | 6 | 7% |
Computer Science | 4 | 4% |
Other | 15 | 16% |
Unknown | 16 | 17% |