METACOGNITION REDUCES CONFIRMATION BIAS AND FACILITATES CHANGES OF MIND IN PERCEPTUAL DECISION MAKING

How do individuals revise their judgments after forming a first impression of the same event? While perceptual decision-making research has predominantly examined how sensory fluctuations influence choices within single trials, real-world decisions often require re-evaluating the same event across time. Here, we investigate the mechanisms underlying decision revision in perceptual tasks, revealing that repeated exposure to the same stimulus systematically biases subsequent judgments toward prior responses. Using drift diffusion modeling, we tested competing decision models that incorporate different assumptions about how prior choices affect evidence accumulation. Our results indicate that these biases emerge from asymmetric sensory weighting, selectively amplifying information consistent with previous choices—a phenomenon akin to confirmation bias. Crucially, individuals with higher metacognitive efficiency exhibited weaker confirmatory biases and more flexible integration of repeated sensory information, enabling greater adaptability in decision-making. These findings highlight the continuous nature of perceptual inference and underscore metacognition’s pivotal role in mitigating bias and optimizing decision flexibility.