Post-decision wagering objectively measures awareness
Nature NeurosciencePublished 21 January 2007
Navindra Persaud, Peter McLeod, Alan Cowey
Citations459
SJR quartileQ1
SJR score11.20
SNIP4.70
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TL;DR
It is shown that participants fail to maximize cash earnings by wagering high following correct decisions in blindsight, the Iowa gambling task and an artificial grammar task, demonstrating, without the uncertainties associated with the conventional subjective measures of awareness, that the participants were not aware that their decisions were correct.
Abstract
The lack of an accepted measure of awareness has made claims that accurate decisions can be made without awareness controversial. Here we introduce a new objective measure of awareness, post-decision wagering. We show that participants fail to maximize cash earnings by wagering high following correct decisions in blindsight, the Iowa gambling task and an artificial grammar task. This demonstrates, without the uncertainties associated with the conventional subjective measures of awareness (verbal reports and confidence ratings), that the participants were not aware that their decisions were correct. Post-decision wagering may be used to study the neural correlates of consciousness.
Keywords
Neuroscience
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