III. Illusion of Confidence

A. Aspects of the Illusion of Confidence

1. Inaccuracy in Confidence Estimates

2. Judging Others by their Confidence

B. Preliminary Examples of Inaccuracy

1. Zaragoza et al.'s Conceptual Elaboration Study (from Unit II)

2. Franks & Bransford's Prototype Card Study (from Unit II)

3. Talarico & Rubin (mentioned in Chapter 2)

4. Kruger & Dunning: The "Dunning-Kruger Effect" (from Chapter 3)

C. And in Judging Others

1. Johnson, Levenkron, Suchman, & Manchester (from the text)

2. Jansen et al. (2011)

3. Group Dynamics & Polarization (e.g., Anderson & Kilduff, 2009)

a. Social Comparison

b. Diffusion of Responsibility (Latane)

c. Self-Serving Bias: Attributing successes and failures to internal vs. external causes

D. Confidence as an Attribution? Some Proposed Mechanisms

1. Prospective Confidence & Availability (e.g., Nelson & Dunlovsky

2. Processes of Recall

a. Speed of Retrieval (e.g., Nelson & Narens)

b. Fluency of Retrieval (e.g., Kelley & Lindsay)

c. Justification of Retrieved Info (e.g., Koriat, Lichtenstein, & Fischoff)

d. Confidence as Familiarity: Signal Detection Theory

i. Noise Distribution

ii. Signal + Noise Distribution

iii. Sensitivity (d') and Bias (β)

iv. Putting it Together: Hits, False Alarms, Misses, & Correct Rejects

3. Contents of Recall

a. Vividness (e.g., Talarico & Rubin)

b. Amount/Quality of Detail (e.g., Chandler)

E. Comparing Retrospective & Prospective Memory: Busey et al.

F. If You Believe You've Recalled Fully... (Brewer et al.)

G. Some Final Comments on Confidence and Eyewitness Memory

1. Garrett (2011): High-Confidence Witnesses in DNA-Overturned Cases

2. Sporer, Penrod, Read, & Cutler (1995) (from Chapter 3)

a. r = .41 between confidence and accuracy in lineup experimentd

b. High-confidence witnesses have 7-% accuracy (note room for error!): Low-confidence wittesses have 30% accuracy

3. Wixted, Mixes, Clark, Gronland, & Roediger (September, 2015): Distinguishing Initial

From Later Confidence (note the literature on memory change over time!)

a. Distinguishing initial confidence from courtroom confidence

b. Initial confidence much more accurate (though note apparent exceptions like the Jennider Thompson case)

c. But note initial confidence can be quickly altered by inferential feedback (e.g., "yeah, it's him;" "a known troublemaker;" etc.)

d. Some of their recommendationas (based also on other reports like the National Academy of Sciences)

i. Have an uninformed administrator during the lineup, not the PI

ii. Video the initial confidence

iii. Exclude later expressions of confidence, including at the time of the trial (i.e., in the courtroom)