Using Brain Computer Interface to unravel cognitive mechanisms of introspective illusion

Benjamin REBOUILLAT, Researcher, Université Paris 8, CHArt Laboratory, France

People can introspect on their internal state and report the reasons driving their decisions but choice blindness (CB) experiments suggest that this ability can sometimes be a retrospective illusion. Indeed, when presented with deceptive cues, people justify choices they did not make in the first place, suggesting that external cues largely contribute to introspective processes. Yet, it remains unclear what are the respective contributions of external cues and internal decision variables in forming an introspective report. Here, using a brain–computer interface, we show that internal variables continue to be monitored but are less impactful than deceptive external cues during CB episodes. Moreover, we show that deceptive cues overturn the classical relationship between confidence and accuracy: introspective failures are associated with higher confidence than genuine introspective reports. We tracked back the origin of these overconfident confabulations by revealing their prominence when internal decision evidence is weak and variable. Thus, introspection is neither a direct reading of internal variables nor a mere retrospective illusion, but rather reflects a bayesian-like integration of internal decision evidence and external cues, with CB being a special instance where internal evidence is inconsistent.