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 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 the integration of internal decision evidence and external cues, with CB being a special instance where internal evidence is inconsistent.

中文翻译：

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当他们的决定得到弱内部变量的支持时，人们会非常自信地胡说八道

人们可以反省自己的内部状态并报告做出决定的原因，但选择盲 (CB) 实验表明，这种能力有时可能是一种回顾性错觉。事实上，当出现欺骗性线索时，人们会为他们一开始没有做出的选择辩护，这表明外部线索在很大程度上有助于内省过程。然而，目前尚不清楚外部线索和内部决策变量在形成内省报告中各自的贡献是什么。在这里，使用脑机接口，我们表明内部变量会继续受到监控，但在 CB 事件中的影响不如欺骗性的外部线索。此外，我们表明欺骗性线索颠覆了置信度和准确性之间的经典关系：与真正的内省报告相比，内省的失败与更高的信心相关。当内部决策证据薄弱且多变时，我们通过揭示它们的重要性来追溯这些过度自信的虚构的起源。因此，内省既不是对内部变量的直接解读，也不是单纯的回顾错觉，而是反映了内部决策证据和外部线索的整合，其中CB是内部证据不一致的一个特例。