Confidence as a Priority Signal

Abstract

When dealing with multiple tasks, we must establish the order in which to tackle them. In multiple experiments, including a preregistered replication ( Ns = 16–105), we found that confidence, or the subjective accuracy of decisions, acts as a priority signal, both when ordering responses about tasks already completed or ordering tasks yet to be completed. Specifically, when participants categorized perceptual stimuli along two dimensions, they tended to first give the decision associated with higher confidence. When participants selected which of two tasks they wanted to perform first, they were slightly biased toward the task associated with higher confidence. This finding extends to nonperceptual decisions (mental calculation) and cannot be reduced to effects of task difficulty, response accuracy, response availability, or implicit demands. Our results thus support the role of confidence as a priority signal, thereby suggesting a new way in which it may regulate human behavior.