Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Clinical Trial
. 2004 Sep;16(7):1131-42.
doi: 10.1162/0898929041920568.

Dissociating confidence and accuracy: functional magnetic resonance imaging shows origins of the subjective memory experience

Elizabeth F Chua  1 , Erin Rand-Giovannetti, Daniel L Schacter, Marilyn S Albert, Reisa A Sperling
Affiliations
Clinical Trial

Dissociating confidence and accuracy: functional magnetic resonance imaging shows origins of the subjective memory experience

Elizabeth F Chua et al. J Cogn Neurosci. 2004 Sep.

Abstract

Successful memory typically implies both objective accuracy and subjective confidence, but there are instances when confidence and accuracy diverge. This dissociation suggests that there may be distinct neural patterns of activation related to confidence and accuracy. We used event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging to study the encoding of novel face--name associations, assessed with a postscan memory test that included objective measures of accuracy and subjective measures of confidence. We showed specific neural activity in the left inferior prefrontal cortex associated with trials when subjects expressed high confidence that they had chosen the correct name for the face and made a correct identification. Moreover, we found that this region was also associated with imparting high confidence when subjects chose the incorrect name. However, medial temporal lobe regions showed activity only for high-confidence correct trials. Many functional magnetic resonance imaging studies have shown that the medial temporal lobe and left prefrontal regions are particularly important for the successful formation of memories by using a combination of subjective and objective measures. Our findings suggest that these regions may be differentially involved in the objective and subjective components of memory and that the origins of confidence-accuracy dissociations may be related to incomplete activation of the neural pattern seen in successful encoding. These findings may also aid understanding of eyewitness misidentifications and memory distortions.

PubMed Disclaimer

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

See all "Cited by" articles

Publication types

LinkOut - more resources