When varying degrees of confidence are added to the mix, the results become more complicated. One recent study compared real memories (high accuracy and high confidence) with fake memories (low accuracy and high confidence). The researchers found that the activated brain areas were clearly different in the two high-confidence situations.

There is still much to discover about confidence, learning and knowledge and about how these variables affect behavior—I, for one, am confident that we will see a lot of future research on these topics.

This article was originally published with the title Ask the Brains.

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