Humans actively sample evidence to support prior beliefs
- University of Oxford, United Kingdom
- University College London, United Kingdom
- Rutgers University, United States
- Princeton University, United States
Abstract
No one likes to be wrong. Previous research has shown that participants may underweight information incompatible with previous choices, a phenomenon called confirmation bias. In this paper we argue that a similar bias exists in the way information is actively sought. We investigate how choice influences information gathering using a perceptual choice task and find that participants sample more information from a previously chosen alternative. Furthermore, the higher the confidence in the initial choice, the more biased information sampling becomes. As a consequence, when faced with the possibility of revising an earlier decision, participants are more likely to stick with their original choice, even when incorrect. Critically, we show that agency controls this phenomenon. The effect disappears in a fixed sampling condition where presentation of evidence is controlled by the experimenter, suggesting that the way in which confirmatory evidence is acquired critically impacts the decision process. These results suggest active information acquisition plays a critical role in the propagation of strongly held beliefs over time.
Data availability
All data is available on the lab GitHub page (https://github.com/BDMLab).
Article and author information
Author details
Pradyumna Sepulveda
Benedetto De Martino
Funding
Wellcome Trust (Henry Dale Fellowship)
- Benedetto De Martino
Royal Society (Henry Dale Fellowship)
- Benedetto De Martino
Chilean National Agency for Research and Development (Scholarship)
- Pradyumna Sepulveda
The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.
Ethics
Human subjects: All participants signed a consent form and both studies were done following the approval given by the University of Cambridge, Cambridge Psychology Research Ethics Committee (PRE.2015.095).
Copyright
© 2022, Kaanders et al.
This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License permitting unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.
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Humans actively sample evidence to support prior beliefs
eLife 11:e71768.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.71768
Further reading
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- Neuroscience
Multisensory object discrimination is essential in everyday life, yet the neural mechanisms underlying this process remain unclear. In this study, we trained rats to perform a two-alternative forced-choice task using both auditory and visual cues. Our findings reveal that multisensory perceptual learning actively engages auditory cortex (AC) neurons in both visual and audiovisual processing. Importantly, many audiovisual neurons in the AC exhibited experience-dependent associations between their visual and auditory preferences, displaying a unique integration model. This model employed selective multisensory enhancement for the auditory-visual pairing guiding the contralateral choice, which correlated with improved multisensory discrimination. Furthermore, AC neurons effectively distinguished whether a preferred auditory stimulus was paired with its associated visual stimulus using this distinct integrative mechanism. Our results highlight the capability of sensory cortices to develop sophisticated integrative strategies, adapting to task demands to enhance multisensory discrimination abilities.
