{
  "abstract": "Confidence (certainty/uncertainty about one's own decision) has attracted considerable attention in psychology, neuroscience, and artificial intelligence. Yet its relation to behavior remains unclear: Some treat confidence as a cause of behavior whereas others view it as a state controlled by environmental variables. The unobservable nature of confidence makes its measurement validation and analyses difficult. To tackle these issues, we developed a novel procedure combining a decision-making task, risk choices, and a post-task open-ended questionnaire. Point-gain/loss amounts for correct/incorrect decisions varied depending on choices between high-risk/high-return and low-risk/low-return. In the questionnaire, 90% of 16 participants reported feelings interpretable as certainty/uncertainty when making those risk choices despite no instruction about confidence, whereas 8% did so when the choices led to identical outcomes/returns. This suggests confidence is a state controlled by environmental contingencies rather than a cause of behavior. We also decoded changes in the state from electroencephalography and functional magnetic resonance imaging.",
  "abstract_shown": true,
  "affiliations": [
    "Advanced Telecommunications Research Institute International"
  ],
  "article_type": "New results",
  "arxiv": null,
  "author_total": 5,
  "authors": [
    {
      "name": "M. Tsutsumi"
    },
    {
      "name": "T. Ogawa"
    },
    {
      "name": "T. Kishi"
    },
    {
      "name": "M. Kawanabe"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        0
      ],
      "name": "T. Kuroda"
    }
  ],
  "bibtex": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/8qjw5f30m2wm4.bib",
  "cited_by": 0,
  "doi": "10.64898/2026.11.05.764725",
  "fulltext_url": "https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.11.05.764725v1.full",
  "id": "8qjw5f30m2wm4",
  "issns": [],
  "landing_url": "https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.11.05.764725v1",
  "language": null,
  "licence": "CC-BY-NC-ND",
  "licence_label": "CC BY-NC-ND",
  "licence_source": "article",
  "licence_url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/",
  "metadata_licence": null,
  "native_subjects": [
    [
      "biorxiv",
      "neuroscience"
    ]
  ],
  "openalex": null,
  "pdf_url": "https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.11.05.764725v1.full.pdf",
  "pmcid": null,
  "pmid": null,
  "published": "2026-11-05",
  "publisher": null,
  "ris": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/8qjw5f30m2wm4.ris",
  "sources": [
    {
      "first_seen": "2026-11-07T00:21:26Z",
      "native_id": "10.64898/2026.11.05.764725",
      "source": "biorxiv",
      "url": "https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.11.05.764725v1"
    }
  ],
  "subjects": [
    {
      "field": "biology",
      "origin": "biorxiv:neuroscience",
      "subfield": "neuroscience"
    }
  ],
  "title": "Confidence: Its Measurement, Relation to Behavior, and Neural Representation",
  "title_text": "Confidence: Its Measurement, Relation to Behavior, and Neural Representation",
  "type": "preprint",
  "updated_at": "2026-11-08T00:21:10Z",
  "url": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/8qjw5f30m2wm4",
  "venue": "bioRxiv",
  "versions": []
}