ArticleNeuron2014
Choice certainty is informed by both evidence and decision time.
Article in Neuron, 2014. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 217 papers.
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
217 citing papers in PubMed.
- Subjective experience of difficulty depends on multiple cues.Scientific reports · 2017Trial
- Towards an integrative neuroscience of metacognition.Nature reviews. Neuroscience · 2026Review
- The samplr package: A tool for modeling human cognition with sampling algorithms.Behavior research methods · 2026Article
- Intrinsic rewards guide visual resource allocation via reinforcement learning.Nature human behaviour · 2026Article
- Trial-by-trial fluctuations in decision criterion shape confidence.Nature human behaviour · 2026Article
- Metacognition and metacognitive monitoring in aging.Psychonomic bulletin & review · 2026Review
- Response duration tracks confidence.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2026Article
- Stimulus reliability but not boundary distance manipulations violate the folded-X pattern of confidence.Cognition · 2026Article
- Flexible Perception of Tactile Cues in Multiple Reference Frames.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Children require more evidence to revise beliefs under gradual perceptual change.Psychological research · 2026Article
- Observability constrains expertise-dependent kinematic readout in action prediction.Cognitive research: principles and implications · 2026Article
- dynConfiR: An R package for sequential sampling models of decision confidence.Behavior research methods · 2026Article
- Macaque Area LIP Reflects Confidence-Dependent Changes in Decision Policy.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Beliefs about accuracy shape confidence attributions to humans and artificial agents.Communications psychology · 2026Article
- Scene variability affects action decisions, confidence and behaviour dynamics.Communications psychology · 2026Article
- Choice-induced preference change under a sequential sampling model framework.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- Sequential sampling from memory underlies perceptual decisions unyoked from actions.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Hierarchical binding of cognition to action in the human basal ganglia-thalamic circuit.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Article
- Neural basis of concurrent deliberation toward a choice and confidence judgment.Nature neuroscience · 2026Article
157 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
Abstract
"Degree of certainty" refers to the subjective belief, prior to feedback, that a decision is correct. A reliable estimate of certainty is essential for prediction, learning from mistakes, and planning subsequent actions when outcomes are not immediate. It is generally thought that certainty is informed by a neural representation of evidence at the time of a decision. Here we show that certainty is also informed by the time taken to form the decision. Human subjects reported simultaneously their choice and confidence about the direction of a noisy display of moving dots. Certainty was inversely correlated with reaction times and directly correlated with motion strength. Moreover, these correlations were preserved even for error responses, a finding that contradicts existing explanations of certainty based on signal detection theory. We also contrived a stimulus manipulation that led to longer decision times without affecting choice accuracy, thus demonstrating that deliberation time itself informs the estimate of certainty. We suggest that elapsed decision time informs certainty because it serves as a proxy for task difficulty.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.