Overlapping and unique neural circuits support perceptual decision making and confidence

Abstract

The period of making a perceptual decision is often followed by a period of confidence generation where one rates the likely accuracy of the initial decision. However, it remains unclear whether the same or different neural circuits are engaged during periods of perceptual decision making and confidence generation. To address this question, we conducted two functional MRI experiments in which we dissociated the periods related to perceptual decision making and confidence report by either separating their respective regressors or asking for confidence ratings only in the second half of the experiment. We found that perceptual decision making and confidence reports gave rise to activations in large and mostly overlapping brain circuits including frontal, parietal, posterior, and cingulate regions with the results being remarkably consistent across the two experiments. Further, the confidence report period activated a number of unique regions, whereas there was no evidence for the decision period activating unique regions not involved in the confidence period. We discuss the possible reasons for this overlap and explore their implications about theories of perceptual decision making and confidence generation.