You’d better decide first: overt and covert decisions improve metacognitive accuracy

Abstract

How can we assess the accuracy of our decisions? Recent theoretical and empirical work suggest that confidence in ones decision is influenced by the characteristics of motor response in a preceding decisional task. In this paper we present experiment designed to test whether decision itself can also inform confidence and therefore increase its accuracy. We tested 143 participants who solved an anagram-solving task in one of 3 conditions: participants either rated their confidence immediately after responding to the anagram task (overt decision), rated their confidence immediately after making a decision but without overt response (covered decision), or rated their confidence before both deciding and responding. The results showed significant relationship between decision accuracy and confidence level in each condition, however this relation was stronger when confidence rating followed decision, either covert or overt. We argue that completing a decisionmaking process increases metacognitive accuracy.