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The precision test of metacognitive sensitivity and confidence criteria

Arnold, D. H., Clendinen, M., Johnston, A. , Lee, A. L. F. & Yarrow, K. ORCID: 0000-0003-0666-2163 (2024). The precision test of metacognitive sensitivity and confidence criteria. Consciousness and Cognition, 123, article number 103728. doi: 10.1016/j.concog.2024.103728

Abstract

Humans experience feelings of confidence in their decisions. In perception, these feelings are typically accurate – we tend to feel more confident about correct decisions. The degree of insight people have into the accuracy of their decisions is known as metacognitive sensitivity. Currently popular methods of estimating metacognitive sensitivity are subject to interpretive ambiguities because they assume people have normally shaped distributions of different experiences when they are repeatedly exposed to a single input. If this normality assumption is violated, calculations can erroneously underestimate metacognitive sensitivity. Here, we describe a means of estimating metacognitive sensitivity that is more robust to violations of the normality assumption. This improved method can easily be added to standard behavioral experiments, and the authors provide Matlab code to help researchers implement these analyses and experimental procedures.

Publication Type: Article
Additional Information: © 2024. This manuscript version is made available under the CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 license https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
Publisher Keywords: Perceptual metacognition, Confidence, Signal detection theory
Subjects: B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > BF Psychology
Departments: School of Health & Psychological Sciences
School of Health & Psychological Sciences > Psychology
SWORD Depositor:
[thumbnail of MetaCog_New_Method_rnd3.pdf] Text - Accepted Version
This document is not freely accessible until 16 July 2025 due to copyright restrictions.
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