How confident are you in your choice? Such a simple but important question for people to answer. Yet, capturing how people answer this question has proven challenging for mathematical models of cognition. Part of the challenge has been that these models assume confidence is a static variable based on the same information used to make a decision. In the first part of my talk, I will review my dynamic theory of confidence, two-stage dynamic signal detection theory (2DSD). 2DSD is based on the premise that the same evidence accumulation process that underlies choice is used to make confidence judgments, but that post-decisional processing of information contributes to confidence judgments. Thus, 2DSD correctly predicts that the resolution of confidence judgments, or their ability to discriminate between correct and incorrect choices, increases over time. However, I have also found that the dynamics of confidence is driven by other factors including the very act of maki ng a choice. In the second of the part of the talk, I will show how 2DSD and other models derived from classical stochastic theories are unable to parsimoniously account for this stable interference effect of choice. In contrast, quantum random walk modes of evidence accumulation account for this property by treating judgments and decisions as a measurement process by which a definite state is created from an indefinite state. In summary, I hope to show how better understanding the dynamic nature of confidence can provide new methods for improving the accuracy of people’s confidence, but also reveal new properties of the deliberation process including perhaps the quantum nature of evidence accumulation.
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