Every decision we make is accompanied by a sense of confidence about its likely outcome. This sense informs subsequent behavior, such as investing more—whether time, effort, or money—when reward is more certain. A neural representation of confidence should originate from a statistical computation and predict confidence-guided behavior. An additional requirement for confidence representations to support metacognition is abstraction: they should emerge irrespective of the source of information and inform multiple confidence-guided behaviors. It is unknown whether neural confidence signals meet these criteria. Here, we show that single orbitofrontal cortex neurons in rats encode statistical decision confidence irrespective of the sensory modality, olfactory or auditory, used to make a choice. The activity of these neurons also predicts two confidence-guided behaviors: trial-by-trial time investment and cross-trial choice strategy updating. Orbitofrontal cortex thus represents decision confidence consistent with a metacognitive process that is useful for mediating confidence-guided economic decisions.

我们做出的每个决定都伴随着对其可能结果的信心。这种感觉会告诉以后的行为，例如，当奖励更加确定时，进行更多的投资（无论是时间，精力还是金钱）。神经的置信度表示应源自统计计算并预测置信度指导的行为。支持元认知的置信表示的另一个要求是抽象：它们应出现，而不管信息的来源如何，并告知多种置信指导的行为。尚不确定神经置信度信号是否满足这些标准。在这里，我们表明，大鼠的单个眶额皮质神经元编码统计决策置信度，而与用于做出选择的感觉方式，嗅觉或听觉无关。这些神经元的活动还预测了两种置信度指导的行为：逐次试验时间投资和跨次试验选择策略更新。因此，眶额皮质代表着与元认知过程相一致的决策信心，对调解以信心为导向的经济决策很有用。