Confidence Forced-Choice and Other Metaperceptual Tasks

Consciousness Under the Spotlight: The Problem of Measuring Subjective Experience

The study of consciousness is considered by many one of the most difficult contemporary scientific endeavors and confronts several methodological and theoretical challenges. A central issue that makes the study of consciousness so challenging is that, while the rest of science is concerned with problems that can be verified from a "third person" view (i.e., objectively), the study of consciousness deals with the phenomenon of subjective experience, only accessible from a "first person" view. In the present article, we review early (starting during the late 19th century) and later efforts on measuring consciousness and its absence, focusing on the two main approaches used by researchers within the field: objective (i.e., performance based) and subjective (i.e., report based) measures of awareness. In addition, we compare the advantages and disadvantages of both types of awareness measures, evaluate them according to different methodological considerations, and discuss, among other issues, the possibility of comparing them by transforming them to a common sensitivity measure (d'). Finally, we explore several new approaches-such as Bayesian models to support the absence of awareness or new machine-learning based decoding models-as well as future challenges-such as measuring the qualia, the qualitative contents of awareness-in consciousness research.

Prosodic discrimination skills mediate the association between musical aptitude and vocal emotion recognition ability

The current study tested the hypothesis that the association between musical ability and vocal emotion recognition skills is mediated by accuracy in prosody perception. Furthermore, it was investigated whether this association is primarily related to musical expertise, operationalized by long-term engagement in musical activities, or musical aptitude, operationalized by a test of musical perceptual ability. To this end, we conducted three studies: In Study 1 (N = 85) and Study 2 (N = 93), we developed and validated a new instrument for the assessment of prosodic discrimination ability. In Study 3 (N = 136), we examined whether the association between musical ability and vocal emotion recognition was mediated by prosodic discrimination ability. We found evidence for a full mediation, though only in relation to musical aptitude and not in relation to musical expertise. Taken together, these findings suggest that individuals with high musical aptitude have superior prosody perception skills, which in turn contribute to their vocal emotion recognition skills. Importantly, our results suggest that these benefits are not unique to musicians, but extend to non-musicians with high musical aptitude.

Unconscious Perception of Vernier Offsets

The comparison between conscious and unconscious perception is a cornerstone of consciousness science. However, most studies reporting above-chance discrimination of unseen stimuli do not control for criterion biases when assessing awareness. We tested whether observers can discriminate subjectively invisible offsets of Vernier stimuli when visibility is probed using a bias-free task. To reduce visibility, stimuli were either backward masked or presented for very brief durations (1-3 milliseconds) using a modern-day Tachistoscope. We found some behavioral indicators of perception without awareness, and yet, no conclusive evidence thereof. To seek more decisive proof, we simulated a series of Bayesian observer models, including some that produce visibility judgements alongside type-1 judgements. Our data are best accounted for by observers with slightly suboptimal conscious access to sensory evidence. Overall, the stimuli and visibility manipulations employed here induced mild instances of blindsight-like behavior, making them attractive candidates for future investigation of this phenomenon.

Metacognitive evaluation of postdecisional perceptual representations

Perceptual confidence is thought to arise from metacognitive processes that evaluate the underlying perceptual decision evidence. We investigated whether metacognitive access to perceptual evidence is constrained by the hierarchical organization of visual cortex, where high-level representations tend to be more readily available for explicit scrutiny. We found that the ability of human observers to evaluate their confidence did depend on whether they performed a high-level or low-level task on the same stimuli, but was also affected by manipulations that occurred long after the perceptual decision. Confidence in low-level perceptual decisions degraded with more time between the decision and the response cue, especially when backward masking was present. Confidence in high-level tasks was immune to backward masking and benefitted from additional time. These results can be explained by a model assuming confidence heavily relies on postdecisional internal representations of visual stimuli that degrade over time, where high-level representations are more persistent.

Online assessment of musical ability in 10 minutes: Development and validation of the Micro-PROMS

We describe the development and validation of a test battery to assess musical ability that taps into a broad range of music perception skills and can be administered in 10 minutes or less. In Study 1, we derived four very brief versions from the Profile of Music Perception Skills (PROMS) and examined their properties in a sample of 280 participants. In Study 2 (N = 109), we administered the version retained from Study 1-termed Micro-PROMS-with the full-length PROMS, finding a short-to-long-form correlation of r = .72. In Study 3 (N = 198), we removed redundant trials and examined test-retest reliability as well as convergent, discriminant, and criterion validity. Results showed adequate internal consistency ( ω ¯ = .73) and test-retest reliability (ICC = .83). Findings supported convergent validity of the Micro-PROMS (r = .59 with the MET, p < .01) as well as discriminant validity with short-term and working memory (r ≲ .20). Criterion-related validity was evidenced by significant correlations of the Micro-PROMS with external indicators of musical proficiency ( r ¯ = .37, ps < .01), and with Gold-MSI General Musical Sophistication (r = .51, p<.01). In virtue of its brevity, psychometric qualities, and suitability for online administration, the battery fills a gap in the tools available to objectively assess musical ability.

Exploring quantitative measures in metacognition of emotion

Metacognition of emotion (meta-emotion) refers to the ability to evaluate and identify one's emotional feelings. No previous study has defined and measured this construct through objective and quantitative procedures. We established a reliable method to measure meta-emotion. With a two-interval forced-choice procedure, participants selected which of two pictures elicited stronger positive emotion; via the Law of Comparative Judgment, their responses were used to compute individual psychological distances for the emotional responses triggered by the pictures. Then, participants were asked to judge whether a pre-exposed picture induced a stronger positive emotion than the median of that elicited by the whole picture set, followed by a confidence rating. By utilizing each individual's psychological distance, the correctness of a participant's emotional experience was quantified by d', and meta-emotion was quantified using meta-d', M-ratio, and M-diff as indices of metacognitive sensitivity and efficiency based on Signal-Detection Theory. Test-retest reliabilities, validated by Spearman correlation, were observed in meta-d', M-ratio, and marginally with M-diff, suggesting the stability of meta-emotion in the current design. This study unveils a validated procedure to quantify meta-emotion, extendable for assessing metacognition of other subjective feelings. Nevertheless, caution is warranted in interpretation, as the measured processes may be influenced by non-metacognitive factors.

Confidence judgments are associated with face identification accuracy: Findings from a confidence forced-choice task

Confidence is assumed to be an indicator of identification accuracy in legal practices (e.g., forensic face examination). However, it is not clear whether people can evaluate the correctness of their face-identification decisions reliably using confidence reports. In the current experiment, confidence in the correctness of the perceptual decision was measured with a confidence forced-choice methodology: Upon completion of two perceptual face-identity matching trials, the participants were asked to compare the two decisions and to select the trial on which they felt more confident. On each face-identity matching trial, participants viewed three face images (two same-identity images, one different-identity image) and were instructed to select the image of the different identity. In order to measure the extent to which difficulty level informs confidence decisions, we selected face-image triads using item-difficulty estimates extracted from psychometric modeling applied in a prior study. The difference in difficulty between the paired face-image triads predicted the proportion of high-confidence judgments allocated to the easier trial of the pair. Consistent with the impact of difficulty monitoring on confidence judgments, performance was significantly more accurate on trials associated with higher confidence. Overall, the results suggested that people reliably evaluate the correctness of their perceptual face-identity matching decisions and use trial difficulty to evaluate confidence.

Judging the difficulty of perceptual decisions

Deciding how difficult it is going to be to perform a task allows us to choose between tasks, allocate appropriate resources, and predict future performance. To be useful for planning, difficulty judgments should not require completion of the task. Here, we examine the processes underlying difficulty judgments in a perceptual decision-making task. Participants viewed two patches of dynamic random dots, which were colored blue or yellow stochastically on each appearance. Stimulus coherence (the probability, pblue, of a dot being blue) varied across trials and patches thus establishing difficulty, |pblue -0.5|. Participants were asked to indicate for which patch it would be easier to decide the dominant color. Accuracy in difficulty decisions improved with the difference in the stimulus difficulties, whereas the reaction times were not determined solely by this quantity. For example, when the patches shared the same difficulty, reaction times were shorter for easier stimuli. A comparison of several models of difficulty judgment suggested that participants compare the absolute accumulated evidence from each stimulus and terminate their decision when they differed by a set amount. The model predicts that when the dominant color of each stimulus is known, reaction times should depend only on the difference in difficulty, which we confirm empirically. We also show that this model is preferred to one that compares the confidence one would have in making each decision. The results extend evidence accumulation models, used to explain choice, reaction time, and confidence to prospective judgments of difficulty.

Common computations for metacognition and meta-metacognition

Recent evidence shows that people have the meta-metacognitive ability to evaluate their metacognitive judgments of confidence. However, it is unclear whether meta-metacognitive judgments are made by a different system and rely on a separate set of computations compared to metacognitive judgments. To address this question, we asked participants (N = 36) to perform a perceptual decision-making task and provide (i) an object-level, Type-1 response about the identity of the stimulus; (ii) a metacognitive, Type-2 response (low/high) regarding their confidence in their Type-1 decision; and (iii) a meta-metacognitive, Type-3 response (low/high) regarding the quality of their Type-2 rating. We found strong evidence for the existence of Type-3, meta-metacognitive ability. In a separate condition, participants performed an identical task with only a Type-1 response followed by a Type-2 response given on a 4-point scale. We found that the two conditions produced equivalent results such that the combination of binary Type-2 and binary Type-3 responses acts similar to a 4-point Type-2 response. Critically, while Type-2 evaluations were subject to metacognitive noise, Type-3 judgments were made at no additional cost. These results suggest that it is unlikely that there is a distinction between Type-2 and Type-3 systems (metacognition and meta-metacognition) in perceptual decision-making and, instead, a single system can be flexibly adapted to produce both Type-2 and Type-3 evaluations recursively.

Judging the difficulty of perceptual decisions

Deciding how difficult it is going to be to perform a task allows us to choose between tasks, allocate appropriate resources, and predict future performance. To be useful for planning, difficulty judgments should not require completion of the task. Here we examine the processes underlying difficulty judgments in a perceptual decision making task. Participants viewed two patches of dynamic random dots, which were colored blue or yellow stochastically on each appearance. Stimulus coherence (the probability, p blue , of a dot being blue) varied across trials and patches thus establishing difficulty, p blue - 0.5 . Participants were asked to indicate for which patch it would be easier to decide the dominant color. Accuracy in difficulty decisions improved with the difference in the stimulus difficulties, whereas the reaction times were not determined solely by this quantity. For example, when the patches shared the same difficulty, reaction times were shorter for easier stimuli. A comparison of several models of difficulty judgment suggested that participants compare the absolute accumulated evidence from each stimulus and terminate their decision when they differed by a set amount. The model predicts that when the dominant color of each stimulus is known, reaction times should depend only on the difference in difficulty, which we confirm empirically. We also show that this model is preferred to one that compares the confidence one would have in making each decision. The results extend evidence accumulation models, used to explain choice, reaction time and confidence to prospective judgments of difficulty.

Cross-modal metacognition: Visual and tactile confidence share a common scale

Humans can judge the quality of their perceptual decisions-an ability known as perceptual confidence. Previous work suggested that confidence can be evaluated on an abstract scale that can be sensory modality-independent or even domain-general. However, evidence is still scarce on whether confidence judgments can be directly made across visual and tactile decisions. Here, we investigated in a sample of 56 adults whether visual and tactile confidence share a common scale by measuring visual contrast and vibrotactile discrimination thresholds in a confidence-forced choice paradigm. Confidence judgments were made about the correctness of the perceptual decision between two trials involving either the same or different modalities. To estimate confidence efficiency, we compared discrimination thresholds obtained from all trials to those from trials judged to be relatively more confident. We found evidence for metaperception because higher confidence was associated with better perceptual performance in both modalities. Importantly, participants were able to judge their confidence across modalities without any costs in metaperceptual sensitivity and only minor changes in response times compared to unimodal confidence judgments. In addition, we were able to predict cross-modal confidence well from unimodal judgments. In conclusion, our findings show that perceptual confidence is computed on an abstract scale and that it can assess the quality of our decisions across sensory modalities.

Confidence in consciousness research

To study (un)conscious perception and test hypotheses about consciousness, researchers need procedures for determining whether subjects consciously perceive stimuli or not. This article is an introduction to a family of procedures called "confidence-based procedures," which consist in interpreting metacognitive indicators as indicators of consciousness. I assess the validity and accuracy of these procedures, and answer a series of common objections to their use in consciousness research. I conclude that confidence-based procedures are valid for assessing consciousness, and, in most cases, accurate enough for our practical and scientific purposes. This article is categorized under: Psychology > Perception and Psychophysics Philosophy > Consciousness.

Audiovisual interaction with rate-varying signals

A task-irrelevant, amplitude-modulating sound influences perception of a size-modulating visual stimulus. To probe the limits of this audiovisual interaction we vary the second temporal derivative of object size and of sound amplitude. In the study's first phase subjects see a visual stimulus size-modulating with f ″ ( x ) > 0, 0, or <0, and judge each one's rate as increasing, constant, or decreasing. Visual stimuli are accompanied by a steady, non-modulated auditory stimulus. The novel combination of multiple stimuli and multi-alternative responses allows subjects' similarity space to be estimated from the stimulus-response confusion matrix. In the study's second phase, rate-varying visual stimuli are presented in concert with auditory stimuli whose second derivative also varied. Subjects identified each visual stimuli as one of the three types, while trying to ignore the accompanying sound. Unlike some previous results with f ″ ( x ) fixed at 0, performance benefits relatively little when visual and auditory stimuli share the same directional change in modulation. However, performance does drop when visual and auditory stimului differ in their directions of rate change. Our task's computational demands may make it particularly vulnerable to the effects of a dynamic task-irrelevant stimulus.

Consensus Goals in the Field of Visual Metacognition

Despite the tangible progress in psychological and cognitive sciences over the last several years, these disciplines still trail other more mature sciences in identifying the most important questions that need to be solved. Reaching such consensus could lead to greater synergy across different laboratories, faster progress, and increased focus on solving important problems rather than pursuing isolated, niche efforts. Here, 26 researchers from the field of visual metacognition reached consensus on four long-term and two medium-term common goals. We describe the process that we followed, the goals themselves, and our plans for accomplishing these goals. If this effort proves successful within the next few years, such consensus building around common goals could be adopted more widely in psychological science.

Confidence at the limits of human nested cognition

Metacognition is the ability to weigh the quality of our own cognition, such as the confidence that our perceptual decisions are correct. Here we ask whether metacognitive performance can itself be evaluated or else metacognition is the ultimate reflective human faculty. Building upon a classic visual perception task, we show that human observers are able to produce nested, above-chance judgements on the quality of their decisions at least up to the fourth order (i.e. meta-meta-meta-cognition). A computational model can account for this nested cognitive ability if evidence has a high-resolution representation, and if there are two kinds of noise, including recursive evidence degradation. The existence of fourth-order sensitivity suggests that the neural mechanisms responsible for second-order metacognition can be flexibly generalized to evaluate any cognitive process, including metacognitive evaluations themselves. We define the theoretical and practical limits of nested cognition and discuss how this approach paves the way for a better understanding of human self-regulation.

Learning with certainty in childhood

Learners use certainty to guide learning. They maintain existing beliefs when certain, but seek further information when they feel uninformed. Here, we review developmental evidence that this metacognitive strategy does not require reportable processing. Uncertainty prompts nonverbal human infants and nonhuman animals to engage in strategies like seeking help, searching for additional information, or opting out. Certainty directs children's attention and active learning strategies and provides a common metric for comparing and integrating conflicting beliefs across people. We conclude that certainty is a continuous, domain-general signal of belief quality even early in life.

Suprathreshold perceptual decisions constrain models of confidence

Perceptual confidence is an important internal signal about the certainty of our decisions and there is a substantial debate on how it is computed. We highlight three confidence metric types from the literature: observers either use 1) the full probability distribution to compute probability correct (Probability metrics), 2) point estimates from the perceptual decision process to estimate uncertainty (Evidence-Strength metrics), or 3) heuristic confidence from stimulus-based cues to uncertainty (Heuristic metrics). These metrics are rarely tested against one another, so we examined models of all three types on a suprathreshold spatial discrimination task. Observers were shown a cloud of dots sampled from a dot generating distribution and judged if the mean of the distribution was left or right of centre. In addition to varying the horizontal position of the mean, there were two sensory uncertainty manipulations: the number of dots sampled and the spread of the generating distribution. After every two perceptual decisions, observers made a confidence forced-choice judgement whether they were more confident in the first or second decision. Model results showed that the majority of observers were best-fit by either: 1) the Heuristic model, which used dot cloud position, spread, and number of dots as cues; or 2) an Evidence-Strength model, which computed the distance between the sensory measurement and discrimination criterion, scaled according to sensory uncertainty. An accidental repetition of some sessions also allowed for the measurement of confidence agreement for identical pairs of stimuli. This N-pass analysis revealed that human observers were more consistent than their best-fitting model would predict, indicating there are still aspects of confidence that are not captured by our modelling. As such, we propose confidence agreement as a useful technique for computational studies of confidence. Taken together, these findings highlight the idiosyncratic nature of confidence computations for complex decision contexts and the need to consider different potential metrics and transformations in the confidence computation.

Age-related differences in visual confidence are driven by individual differences in cognitive control capacities

Visual perception is not only shaped by sensitivity but also by confidence, i.e., the ability to estimate the accuracy of a visual decision. Younger observers have been reported to have access to a reliable measure of their own uncertainty when making visual decisions. This metacognitive ability might be challenged during ageing due to increasing sensory noise and decreasing cognitive control resources. We investigated age effects on visual confidence using a visual contrast discrimination task and a confidence forced-choice paradigm. Younger adults (19-38 years) showed significantly lower discrimination thresholds than older adults (60-78 years). To focus on confidence sensitivity above and beyond differences in discrimination performance, we estimated confidence efficiency that reflects the ability to distinguish good from bad perceptual decisions. Confidence efficiency was estimated by comparing thresholds obtained from all trials and trials that were judged with relatively higher confidence, respectively. In both age groups, high confidence judgments were associated with better visual performance, but confidence efficiency was reduced in older adults. However, we observed substantial variability across all participants. Controlling for age group, confidence effciency was closely linked to individual differences in cognitive control capacities. Our findings provide evidence for age-related differences in confidence efficiency that present a specific challenge to perceptual performance in old age. We propose that these differences are driven by cognitive control capacities, supporting their crucial role for metacognitive efficiency.

The development of metacognitive accuracy in working memory across childhood

Growth in working memory capacity, the number of items kept active in mind, is thought to be an important aspect of childhood cognitive development. Here, we focused on participants' awareness of the contents of their working memory, or meta-working memory, which seems important because people can put cognitive abilities to best use only if they are aware of their limitations. In two experiments on the development of meta-working memory in children between 6 and 13 years old and adults, participants were to remember arrays of colored squares and to indicate if a probe item was in the array. On many trials, before the probe recognition test, they reported a metajudgment, how many items they thought they remembered. We compared meta-working memory judgments to actual performance and looked for associations between these measures on individual and trial-by-trial levels. Despite much lower working memory capacity in younger children there was little change in meta-working memory judgments across age groups. Consequently, younger participants were much less realistic in their metajudgments concerning their working memory capability. Higher cognitive capacity was associated with more accurate meta-working memory judgments within an age group. Trial-by-trial tuning of metajudgments was evident only in young adults and then only for small array set sizes. In sum, meta-working memory ability is a sophisticated skill that develops with age and may be an integral aspect of the development of working memory across the school years. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

Underconfidence in peripheral vision

Our visual experience appears uniform across the visual field, despite the poor resolution of peripheral vision. This may be because we do not notice that we are missing details in the periphery of our visual field and believe that peripheral vision is just as rich as central vision. In other words, the uniformity of the visual scene could be explained by a metacognitive bias. We deployed a confidence forced-choice method to measure metacognitive performance in peripheral as compared to central vision. Participants judged the orientation of gratings presented in central and peripheral vision, and reported whether they thought they were more likely to be correct in the perceptual decision for the central or for the peripheral stimulus. Observers were underconfident in the periphery: higher sensory evidence in the periphery was needed to equate confidence choices between central and peripheral perceptual decisions. When performance on the central and peripheral tasks was matched, observers were still more confident in their ability to report the orientation of the central gratings over the one of the peripheral gratings. In a second experiment, we measured metacognitive sensitivity, as the difference in perceptual sensitivity between perceptual decisions that are chosen with high confidence and decisions that are chosen with low confidence. Results showed that metacognitive sensitivity is lower when participants compare central to peripheral perceptual decisions compared to when they compare peripheral to peripheral or central to central perceptual decisions. In a third experiment, we showed that peripheral underconfidence does not arise because observers based confidence judgments on stimulus size or contrast range rather than on perceptual performance. Taken together, results indicate that humans are impaired in comparing central with peripheral perceptual performance, but metacognitive biases cannot explain our impression of uniformity, as this would require peripheral overconfidence.

Are children's judgments of another's accuracy linked to their metacognitive confidence judgments?

The world can be a confusing place, which leads to a significant challenge: how do we figure out what is true? To accomplish this, children possess two relevant skills: reasoning about the likelihood of their own accuracy (metacognitive confidence) and reasoning about the likelihood of others' accuracy (mindreading). Guided by Signal Detection Theory and Simulation Theory, we examine whether these two self- and other-oriented skills are one in the same, relying on a single cognitive process. Specifically, Signal Detection Theory proposes that confidence in a decision is purely derived from the imprecision of that decision, predicting a tight correlation between decision accuracy and confidence. Simulation Theory further proposes that children attribute their own cognitive experience to others when reasoning socially. Together, these theories predict that children's self and other reasoning should be highly correlated and dependent on decision accuracy. In four studies (N = 374), children aged 4-7 completed a confidence reasoning task and selective social learning task each designed to eliminate confounding language and response biases, enabling us to isolate the unique correlation between self and other reasoning. However, in three of the four studies, we did not find that individual differences on the two tasks correlated, nor that decision accuracy explained performance. These findings suggest self and other reasoning are either independent in childhood, or the result of a single process that operates differently for self and others.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s11409-021-09263-x.

Normal observers show no evidence for blindsight in facial emotion perception

Some researchers have argued that normal human observers can exhibit "blindsight-like" behavior: the ability to discriminate or identify a stimulus without being aware of it. However, we recently used a bias-free task to show that what looks like blindsight may in fact be an artifact of typical experimental paradigms' susceptibility to response bias. While those findings challenge previous reports of blindsight in normal observers, they do not rule out the possibility that different stimuli or techniques could still reveal perception without awareness. One intriguing candidate is emotion processing, since processing of emotional stimuli (e.g. fearful/happy faces) has been reported to potentially bypass conscious visual circuits. Here we used the bias-free blindsight paradigm to investigate whether emotion processing might reveal "featural blindsight," i.e. ability to identify a face's emotion without introspective access to the task-relevant features that led to the discrimination decision. However, we saw no evidence for emotion processing "featural blindsight": as before, whenever participants could identify a face's emotion they displayed introspective access to the task-relevant features, matching predictions of a Bayesian ideal observer. These results add to the growing body of evidence that perceptual discrimination ability without introspective access may not be possible for neurologically intact observers.

Performance monitoring for sensorimotor confidence: A visuomotor tracking study

To best interact with the external world, humans are often required to consider the quality of their actions. Sometimes the environment furnishes rewards or punishments to signal action efficacy. However, when such feedback is absent or only partial, we must rely on internally generated signals to evaluate our performance (i.e., metacognition). Yet, very little is known about how humans form such judgements of sensorimotor confidence. Do they monitor their actual performance or do they rely on cues to sensorimotor uncertainty? We investigated sensorimotor metacognition in two visuomotor tracking experiments, where participants followed an unpredictably moving dot cloud with a mouse cursor as it followed a random horizontal trajectory. Their goal was to infer the underlying target generating the dots, track it for several seconds, and then report their confidence in their tracking as better or worse than their average. In Experiment 1, we manipulated task difficulty with two methods: varying the size of the dot cloud and varying the stability of the target's velocity. In Experiment 2, the stimulus statistics were fixed and duration of the stimulus presentation was varied. We found similar levels of metacognitive sensitivity in all experiments, which was evidence against the cue-based strategy. The temporal analysis of metacognitive sensitivity revealed a recency effect, where error later in the trial had a greater influence on the sensorimotor confidence, consistent with a performance-monitoring strategy. From these results, we conclude that humans predominantly monitored their tracking performance, albeit inefficiently, to build a sense of sensorimotor confidence.