Hélène Van Marcke (KU Leuven & Ghent University)
Explaining under- and overconfidence: A fundamental account based on prior beliefs
(co-PI Senne Braem)
get in touch: helene.vanmarcke (at) kuleuven (.) be

My main focus of study is the subjective factors that influence people’s decision confidence, resulting in under- or overconfidence when it comes to perceptual decisions. It is often assumed that decision-makers compute the objective probability that their choice was correct, implying that decision confidence should be optimal and objective. Driven by the many occurrences of suboptimal metacognition in daily life, most notably under- and overconfidence, my research tackles this notion that confidence equals the probability of being correct. In recent work, we have already established the causal influence of prior beliefs about performance on decision confidence. In upcoming projects, I aim to expand upon this work to formally establish this fundamental explanation of under- and overconfidence, by using a combination of behavioural and neuroimaging methods.