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Su Z, Garvert MM, Zhang L, Manohar SG, Vogel TA, Thomas L, Balsters JH, Husain M, Apps MAJ, Lockwood PL. Older adults are relatively more susceptible to impulsive social influence than young adults. COMMUNICATIONS PSYCHOLOGY 2024; 2:87. [PMID: 39313518 PMCID: PMC11420232 DOI: 10.1038/s44271-024-00134-0] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/24/2024] [Accepted: 08/29/2024] [Indexed: 09/25/2024]
Abstract
People differ in their levels of impulsivity and patience, and these preferences are heavily influenced by others. Previous research suggests that susceptibility to social influence may vary with age, but the mechanisms and whether people are more influenced by patience or impulsivity remain unknown. Here, using a delegated inter-temporal choice task and Bayesian computational models, we tested susceptibility to social influence in young (aged 18-36, N = 76) and older (aged 60-80, N = 78) adults. Participants completed a temporal discounting task and then learnt the preferences of two other people (one more impulsive and one more patient) before making their choices again. We used the signed Kullback-Leibler divergence to quantify the magnitude and direction of social influence. We found that, compared to young adults, older adults were relatively more susceptible to impulsive social influence. Factor analyses showed that older adults with higher self-reported levels of affective empathy and emotional motivation were particularly susceptible to impulsive influence. Importantly, older and young adults showed similar learning accuracy about others' preferences, and their baseline impulsivity did not differ. Together, these findings suggest highly affectively empathetic and emotionally motivated older adults may be at higher risk for impulsive decisions, due to their susceptibility to social influence.
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Affiliation(s)
- Zhilin Su
- Centre for Human Brain Health, School of Psychology, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, B15 2TT, UK.
| | - Mona M Garvert
- Faculty of Human Sciences, Junior professorship of Neuroscience, University of Würzburg, 97070, Würzburg, Germany
| | - Lei Zhang
- Centre for Human Brain Health, School of Psychology, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, B15 2TT, UK
- Institute for Mental Health, School of Psychology, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, B15 2TT, UK
- Centre for Developmental Sciences, School of Psychology, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, B15 2TT, UK
| | - Sanjay G Manohar
- Nuffield Department of Clinical Neurosciences, University of Oxford, Oxford, OX3 9DU, UK
- Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford, Oxford, OX2 6GG, UK
| | - Todd A Vogel
- Centre for Human Brain Health, School of Psychology, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, B15 2TT, UK
- Institute for Mental Health, School of Psychology, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, B15 2TT, UK
- Centre for Developmental Sciences, School of Psychology, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, B15 2TT, UK
| | - Louisa Thomas
- Department of Psychology, Royal Holloway, University of London, Surrey, TW20 0EX, UK
| | - Joshua H Balsters
- Department of Psychology, Royal Holloway, University of London, Surrey, TW20 0EX, UK
| | - Masud Husain
- Nuffield Department of Clinical Neurosciences, University of Oxford, Oxford, OX3 9DU, UK
- Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford, Oxford, OX2 6GG, UK
- Wellcome Centre for Integrative Neuroimaging, University of Oxford, Oxford, OX3 9DU, UK
| | - Matthew A J Apps
- Centre for Human Brain Health, School of Psychology, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, B15 2TT, UK
- Institute for Mental Health, School of Psychology, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, B15 2TT, UK
- Centre for Developmental Sciences, School of Psychology, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, B15 2TT, UK
- Nuffield Department of Clinical Neurosciences, University of Oxford, Oxford, OX3 9DU, UK
- Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford, Oxford, OX2 6GG, UK
- Wellcome Centre for Integrative Neuroimaging, University of Oxford, Oxford, OX3 9DU, UK
| | - Patricia L Lockwood
- Centre for Human Brain Health, School of Psychology, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, B15 2TT, UK.
- Institute for Mental Health, School of Psychology, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, B15 2TT, UK.
- Centre for Developmental Sciences, School of Psychology, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, B15 2TT, UK.
- Nuffield Department of Clinical Neurosciences, University of Oxford, Oxford, OX3 9DU, UK.
- Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford, Oxford, OX2 6GG, UK.
- Wellcome Centre for Integrative Neuroimaging, University of Oxford, Oxford, OX3 9DU, UK.
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2
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Double KS, Birney DP. Confidence judgments interfere with perceptual decision making. Sci Rep 2024; 14:14133. [PMID: 38898057 PMCID: PMC11187068 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-024-64575-7] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/31/2024] [Accepted: 06/11/2024] [Indexed: 06/21/2024] Open
Abstract
Determining one's confidence in a decision is a vital part of decision-making. Traditionally, psychological experiments have assessed a person's confidence by eliciting confidence judgments. The notion that such judgments can be elicited without impacting the accuracy of the decision has recently been challenged by several studies which have shown reactivity effects-either an increase or decrease in decision accuracy when confidence judgments are elicited. Evidence for the direction of reactivity effects has, however, been decidedly mixed. Here, we report three studies designed to specifically make reactivity effects more prominent by eliciting confidence judgment contemporaneously with perceptual decisions. We show that confidence judgments elicited contemporaneously produce an impairment in decision accuracy, this suggests that confidence judgments may rely on a partially distinct set of cues/evidence than the primary perceptual decision and, additionally, challenges the continued use of confidence ratings as an unobtrusive measure of metacognition.
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Affiliation(s)
- Kit S Double
- School of Psychology, University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia.
| | - Damian P Birney
- School of Psychology, University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia
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3
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Van Marcke H, Denmat PL, Verguts T, Desender K. Manipulating Prior Beliefs Causally Induces Under- and Overconfidence. Psychol Sci 2024; 35:358-375. [PMID: 38427319 DOI: 10.1177/09567976241231572] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 03/02/2024] Open
Abstract
Humans differ vastly in the confidence they assign to decisions. Although such under- and overconfidence relate to fundamental life outcomes, a computational account specifying the underlying mechanisms is currently lacking. We propose that prior beliefs in the ability to perform a task explain confidence differences across participants and tasks, despite similar performance. In two perceptual decision-making experiments, we show that manipulating prior beliefs about performance during training causally influences confidence in healthy adults (N = 50 each; Experiment 1: 8 men, one nonbinary; Experiment 2: 5 men) during a test phase, despite unaffected objective performance. This is true when prior beliefs are induced via manipulated comparative feedback and via manipulated training-phase difficulty. Our results were accounted for within an accumulation-to-bound model, explicitly modeling prior beliefs on the basis of earlier task exposure. Decision confidence is quantified as the probability of being correct conditional on prior beliefs, causing under- or overconfidence. We provide a fundamental mechanistic insight into the computations underlying under- and overconfidence.
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Affiliation(s)
- Hélène Van Marcke
- Brain and Cognition, Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences, KU Leuven
- Department of Experimental Psychology, Ghent University
| | - Pierre Le Denmat
- Brain and Cognition, Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences, KU Leuven
| | - Tom Verguts
- Department of Experimental Psychology, Ghent University
| | - Kobe Desender
- Brain and Cognition, Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences, KU Leuven
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4
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Katyal S, Fleming SM. The future of metacognition research: Balancing construct breadth with measurement rigor. Cortex 2024; 171:223-234. [PMID: 38041921 PMCID: PMC11139654 DOI: 10.1016/j.cortex.2023.11.002] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/20/2023] [Revised: 10/20/2023] [Accepted: 11/02/2023] [Indexed: 12/04/2023]
Abstract
Foundational work in the psychology of metacognition identified a distinction between metacognitive knowledge (stable beliefs about one's capacities) and metacognitive experiences (local evaluations of performance). More recently, the field has focused on developing tasks and metrics that seek to identify metacognitive capacities from momentary estimates of confidence in performance, and providing precise computational accounts of metacognitive failure. However, this notable progress in formalising models of metacognitive judgments may come at a cost of ignoring broader elements of the psychology of metacognition - such as how stable meta-knowledge is formed, how social cognition and metacognition interact, and how we evaluate affective states that do not have an obvious ground truth. We propose that construct breadth in metacognition research can be restored while maintaining rigour in measurement, and highlight promising avenues for expanding the scope of metacognition research. Such a research programme is well placed to recapture qualitative features of metacognitive knowledge and experience while maintaining the psychophysical rigor that characterises modern research on confidence and performance monitoring.
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Affiliation(s)
- Sucharit Katyal
- Max Planck UCL Centre for Computational Psychiatry and Ageing Research, University College London, London, UK; Wellcome Centre for Human Neuroimaging, University College London, London, UK.
| | - Stephen M Fleming
- Max Planck UCL Centre for Computational Psychiatry and Ageing Research, University College London, London, UK; Wellcome Centre for Human Neuroimaging, University College London, London, UK; Department of Experimental Psychology, University College London, London, UK.
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5
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Fleming SM. Metacognition and Confidence: A Review and Synthesis. Annu Rev Psychol 2024; 75:241-268. [PMID: 37722748 DOI: 10.1146/annurev-psych-022423-032425] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 09/20/2023]
Abstract
Determining the psychological, computational, and neural bases of confidence and uncertainty holds promise for understanding foundational aspects of human metacognition. While a neuroscience of confidence has focused on the mechanisms underpinning subpersonal phenomena such as representations of uncertainty in the visual or motor system, metacognition research has been concerned with personal-level beliefs and knowledge about self-performance. I provide a road map for bridging this divide by focusing on a particular class of confidence computation: propositional confidence in one's own (hypothetical) decisions or actions. Propositional confidence is informed by the observer's models of the world and their cognitive system, which may be more or less accurate-thus explaining why metacognitive judgments are inferential and sometimes diverge from task performance. Disparate findings on the neural basis of uncertainty and performance monitoring are integrated into a common framework, and a new understanding of the locus of action of metacognitive interventions is developed.
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Affiliation(s)
- Stephen M Fleming
- Department of Experimental Psychology, Wellcome Centre for Human Neuroimaging, and Max Planck UCL Centre for Computational Psychiatry and Ageing Research, University College London, London, United Kingdom;
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6
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Esmaily J, Zabbah S, Ebrahimpour R, Bahrami B. Interpersonal alignment of neural evidence accumulation to social exchange of confidence. eLife 2023; 12:e83722. [PMID: 38128085 PMCID: PMC10746141 DOI: 10.7554/elife.83722] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/26/2022] [Accepted: 11/09/2023] [Indexed: 12/23/2023] Open
Abstract
Private, subjective beliefs about uncertainty have been found to have idiosyncratic computational and neural substrates yet, humans share such beliefs seamlessly and cooperate successfully. Bringing together decision making under uncertainty and interpersonal alignment in communication, in a discovery plus pre-registered replication design, we examined the neuro-computational basis of the relationship between privately held and socially shared uncertainty. Examining confidence-speed-accuracy trade-off in uncertainty-ridden perceptual decisions under social vs isolated context, we found that shared (i.e. reported confidence) and subjective (inferred from pupillometry) uncertainty dynamically followed social information. An attractor neural network model incorporating social information as top-down additive input captured the observed behavior and demonstrated the emergence of social alignment in virtual dyadic simulations. Electroencephalography showed that social exchange of confidence modulated the neural signature of perceptual evidence accumulation in the central parietal cortex. Our findings offer a neural population model for interpersonal alignment of shared beliefs.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jamal Esmaily
- Department of General Psychology and Education, Ludwig Maximillian UniversityMunichGermany
- Faculty of Computer Engineering, Shahid Rajaee Teacher Training UniversityTehranIslamic Republic of Iran
- Graduate School of Systemic Neurosciences, Ludwig Maximilian University MunichMunichGermany
| | - Sajjad Zabbah
- School of Cognitive Sciences, Institute for Research in Fundamental Sciences (IPM)TehranIslamic Republic of Iran
- Wellcome Centre for Human Neuroimaging, University College LondonLondonUnited Kingdom
- Max Planck UCL Centre for Computational Psychiatry and Aging Research, University College LondonLondonUnited Kingdom
| | - Reza Ebrahimpour
- Institute for Convergent Science and Technology, Sharif University of TechnologyTehranIslamic Republic of Iran
| | - Bahador Bahrami
- Department of General Psychology and Education, Ludwig Maximillian UniversityMunichGermany
- Centre for Adaptive Rationality, Max Planck Institute for Human DevelopmentBerlinGermany
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7
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Konova AB, Ceceli AO, Horga G, Moeller SJ, Alia-Klein N, Goldstein RZ. Reduced neural encoding of utility prediction errors in cocaine addiction. Neuron 2023; 111:4058-4070.e6. [PMID: 37883973 PMCID: PMC10880133 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuron.2023.09.015] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/14/2022] [Revised: 07/18/2023] [Accepted: 09/13/2023] [Indexed: 10/28/2023]
Abstract
Influential accounts of addiction posit alterations in adaptive behavior driven by deficient dopaminergic prediction errors (PEs), signaling the discrepancy between actual and expected reward. Dopamine neurons encode these error signals in subjective terms, calibrated by individual risk preferences, as "utility" PEs. It remains unclear, however, whether people with drug addiction have PE deficits or their computational source. Here, using an analogous task to prior single-unit studies with known expectancies, we show that fMRI-measured PEs similarly reflect utility PEs. Relative to control participants, people with chronic cocaine addiction demonstrate reduced utility PEs in the dopaminoceptive ventral striatum, with similar trends in orbitofrontal cortex. Dissecting this PE signal into its subcomponent terms attributed these reductions to weaker striatal responses to received reward/utility, whereas suppression of activity with reward expectation was unchanged. These findings support that addiction may fundamentally disrupt PE signaling and reveal an underappreciated role for perceived reward value in this mechanism.
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Affiliation(s)
- Anna B Konova
- Department of Psychiatry, University Behavioral Health Care & the Brain Health Institute, Rutgers University-New Brunswick, Piscataway, NJ 08855, USA.
| | - Ahmet O Ceceli
- Departments of Psychiatry & Neuroscience, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, NY 10029, USA
| | - Guillermo Horga
- Department of Psychiatry, Columbia University, New York, NY 10024, USA
| | - Scott J Moeller
- Department of Psychiatry, Renaissance School of Medicine at Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, NY 11794, USA
| | - Nelly Alia-Klein
- Departments of Psychiatry & Neuroscience, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, NY 10029, USA
| | - Rita Z Goldstein
- Departments of Psychiatry & Neuroscience, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, NY 10029, USA.
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8
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Dai C, Peng Z, Wang L, Song T, Xu L, Xu M, Shao Y. Total sleep deprivation reduces the table tennis anticipation performance of young men: A functional magnetic resonance imaging study. iScience 2023; 26:107973. [PMID: 37822501 PMCID: PMC10562798 DOI: 10.1016/j.isci.2023.107973] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/06/2023] [Revised: 07/31/2023] [Accepted: 09/15/2023] [Indexed: 10/13/2023] Open
Abstract
This study explored whether and how sleep deprivation (SD) affects sport-related anticipation. Twenty table tennis players and 28 non-athletes completed a table tennis anticipation task before and after 36 h SD. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data were acquired simultaneously. The results showed that, compared with the non-athletes, table tennis players had higher neural efficiency, manifested by their higher anticipation accuracy and lower frontal lobe activation. SD impaired anticipation performance, accompanied by decreased activation of the occipital and temporal lobes. Compensatory activation occurred in the left hippocampus and orbital part of the right inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) after SD in the table tennis player group, but not in the non-athlete group. The decreased accuracy of non-athletes was positively correlated with decreased activation of orbital part of the right IFG. This study's findings improve the understanding of the cognitive neuroscience mechanisms by which SD affects sport-related anticipation.
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Affiliation(s)
- Cimin Dai
- School of Psychology, Beijing Sport University, Beijing 100084, China
| | - Ziyi Peng
- School of Psychology, Beijing Sport University, Beijing 100084, China
| | - Letong Wang
- School of Psychology, Beijing Sport University, Beijing 100084, China
| | - Tao Song
- School of Psychology, Beijing Sport University, Beijing 100084, China
| | - Lin Xu
- School of Psychology, Beijing Sport University, Beijing 100084, China
| | - Mengmeng Xu
- School of Psychology, Beijing Sport University, Beijing 100084, China
| | - Yongcong Shao
- School of Psychology, Beijing Sport University, Beijing 100084, China
- School of Biological Science and Medical Engineering, Beihang University, Beijing 100191, China
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9
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Trudel N, Lockwood PL, Rushworth MFS, Wittmann MK. Neural activity tracking identity and confidence in social information. eLife 2023; 12:71315. [PMID: 36763582 PMCID: PMC9917428 DOI: 10.7554/elife.71315] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/16/2021] [Accepted: 12/15/2022] [Indexed: 02/11/2023] Open
Abstract
Humans learn about the environment either directly by interacting with it or indirectly by seeking information about it from social sources such as conspecifics. The degree of confidence in the information obtained through either route should determine the impact that it has on adapting and changing behaviour. We examined whether and how behavioural and neural computations differ during non-social learning as opposed to learning from social sources. Trial-wise confidence judgements about non-social and social information sources offered a window into this learning process. Despite matching exactly the statistical features of social and non-social conditions, confidence judgements were more accurate and less changeable when they were made about social as opposed to non-social information sources. In addition to subjective reports of confidence, differences were also apparent in the Bayesian estimates of participants' subjective beliefs. Univariate activity in dorsomedial prefrontal cortex and posterior temporoparietal junction more closely tracked confidence about social as opposed to non-social information sources. In addition, the multivariate patterns of activity in the same areas encoded identities of social information sources compared to non-social information sources.
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Affiliation(s)
- Nadescha Trudel
- Wellcome Centre of Integrative Neuroimaging (WIN), Department of Experimental Psychology, University of OxfordOxfordUnited Kingdom
- Wellcome Centre for Human Neuroimaging, University College LondonLondonUnited Kingdom
- Max Planck UCL Centre for Computational Psychiatry and Ageing Research, University College LondonLondonUnited Kingdom
| | - Patricia L Lockwood
- Centre for Human Brain Health, School of Psychology, University of BirminghamBirminghamUnited Kingdom
- Institute for Mental Health, School of Psychology, University of BirminghamBirminghamUnited Kingdom
- Centre for Developmental Science, School of Psychology, University of BirminghamBirminghamUnited Kingdom
| | - Matthew FS Rushworth
- Wellcome Centre of Integrative Neuroimaging (WIN), Department of Experimental Psychology, University of OxfordOxfordUnited Kingdom
- Wellcome Centre of Integrative Neuroimaging (WIN), Centre for Functional MRI of the Brain, Nuffield Department of Clinical Neurosciences, John Radcliffe Hospital, University of OxfordOxfordUnited Kingdom
| | - Marco K Wittmann
- Wellcome Centre of Integrative Neuroimaging (WIN), Department of Experimental Psychology, University of OxfordOxfordUnited Kingdom
- Max Planck UCL Centre for Computational Psychiatry and Ageing Research, University College LondonLondonUnited Kingdom
- Department of Experimental Psychology, University College LondonLondonUnited Kingdom
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