ArticleNature human behaviour2022
Subjective confidence reflects representation of Bayesian probability in cortex.
Article in Nature human behaviour, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. An erratum has been issued. Cited by 51 papers.
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Who cites it
51 citing papers in PubMed.
- Towards an integrative neuroscience of metacognition.Nature reviews. Neuroscience · 2026Review
- The influence of subjective confidence on speed perception in peripheral vision.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- Cerebellar perturbation impairs human working memory and degrades spatial tuning throughout cortex.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Observer effect modulates classification in a quantum epistemic framework.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- The Contribution of Bayesian Methods in Solving the Paradoxes of Classical Statistical Tests in Biomedical Research.Journal of clinical medicine · 2026Article
- Large-scale mega-analysis indicates that serial dependence deteriorates perceptual decision-making.Nature human behaviour · 2026Article
- Perceptual confidence has near perfect access to the existence of discrete representations, but only weak access to precision.Cognition · 2026Article
- A Rosetta Stone hypothesis for neurophenomenology: mathematical predictions from predictive processing.Neuroscience of consciousness · 2026Article
- Neural basis of concurrent deliberation toward a choice and confidence judgment.Nature neuroscience · 2026Article
- Factorized embedding of goal and uncertainty in the lateral prefrontal cortex guides stably flexible learning.Nature communications · 2025Article
- Theta Activity Supports Landmark-Based Correction of Naturalistic Human Path Integration.The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience · 2025Article
- The neural basis for uncertainty processing in hierarchical decision making.Nature communications · 2025Article
- Developmental differences in social information use under uncertainty: A neurocomputational approach.Developmental cognitive neuroscience · 2025Article
- Computational and Neuronal Basis of Visual Confidence.Annual review of vision science · 2025Review
- Neural correlates of Bayesian social belief updating in the medial prefrontal cortex.Cerebral cortex (New York, N.Y. : 1991) · 2025Article
- Shared and Diverging Neural Dynamics Underlying False and Veridical Perception.The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience · 2025Article
- Sensory population activity reveals downstream confidence computations in the primate visual system.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2025Article
- Confidence reports during perceptual decision making dissociate from changes in subjective experience.Communications psychology · 2025Article
- Quantitative dynamics of neural uncertainty in sensory processing and decision-making during discriminative learning.Experimental & molecular medicine · 2025Article
- Neural basis of concurrent deliberation toward a choice and confidence judgment.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
Corrections and comments
- Commented on by
- Erratum issued
Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
Abstract
What gives rise to the human sense of confidence? Here we tested the Bayesian hypothesis that confidence is based on a probability distribution represented in neural population activity. We implemented several computational models of confidence and tested their predictions using psychophysics and functional magnetic resonance imaging. Using a generative model-based decoding technique, we extracted probability distributions from neural population activity in human visual cortex. We found that subjective confidence tracks the shape of the decoded distribution. That is, when sensory evidence was more precise, as indicated by the decoded distribution, observers reported higher levels of confidence. We furthermore found that neural activity in the insula, anterior cingulate and prefrontal cortex was linked to both the shape of the decoded distribution and reported confidence, in ways consistent with the Bayesian model. Altogether, our findings support recent statistical theories of confidence and suggest that probabilistic information guides the computation of one's sense of confidence.
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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.