Higher confidence can predict lower accuracy in certain cognitive tasks
Multiple studies demonstrate dissociations between subjective certainty and objective performance, showing that individuals can exhibit overconfidence or miscalibrated confidence across various cognitive tasks.
The retrieved papers provide empirical evidence demonstrating that confidence and accuracy can dissociate, with instances of overconfidence or miscalibration occurring in specific tasks (such as peripheral perception, nutritional judgments, and reading comprehension). The claim is well-supported by these findings without substantial contradictory evidence regarding the general phenomenon of confidence-accuracy disconnects.
Sharvashidze N, Toscani M, Valsecchi M. Peripheral overconfidence in a scene categorization task.. 2025. https://doi.org/10.1167/jov.25.10.2
Demonstrates peripheral overconfidence in a scene categorization task where participants show misaligned confidence relative to actual perceptual capacities.
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Hoogervorst K, Bavato F, Tyrer A, Allen M. Dissociating Accuracy and Metacognition in Nutritional Judgements. 2026. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/5xhnk_v1
Shows a dissociation in nutritional judgments where participants reported significantly higher confidence for calorie judgments despite differing objective performance levels.
Markovich V, Dorfberger S, Halamish V, Katzir T, Tal D, Yinon R. Metacognitive Monitoring in Reading Comprehension: Examining the Role of Cognitive Flexibility, Vocabulary, and Fluency in Young Readers.. 2026. https://doi.org/10.3390/jintelligence14030042
Finds that reading fluency is associated with lower calibration accuracy and greater overconfident judgment tendencies in young readers.
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