Nature Sub-Journal: A deep understanding of brain confirmation bias, why would you think that way?

Usually, people are easily distracted by other people's confident judgments, but in most cases, they are not.humans tend to deny information that contradicts past judgments. This kind of scene is called confirmation bias.recently, researchers from University College London have launched a brain scanning study to reveal the mechanism of confirmation bias, which is published in the journal Nature Neuroscience.the researchers recruited 42 participants, including 22 men and 20 girls, aged between 18 and 38, and divided them into two groups to play real estate investment games.each pair of participants met before the trial, and then quickly started the trial.the experiment was divided into two parts, each part included 175 tests.the first part was conducted in a separate cubicle. The researchers showed the participants pictures and prices of real estate for 4 seconds, and the prices displayed were either lower than 20% or higher than 20%.participants need to judge whether the market price on the real estate website is higher than the market price displayed.and then input the amount of 1-60 cents to invest. If it is correct, you can get this amount; otherwise, you will lose this amount.next, participants learned about their peers' judgments and bets, and performed the second part of the experiment on two adjacent MRI scanners separated by glass walls.in each test, the researchers showed the same picture and price as the first time for 2 seconds, followed by their and their peers' previous judgments and bets for 2 seconds. Finally, participants were asked to reinvest.the behavioral results of the experimental paradigm showed that when two participants agreed, they would increase the final bet to a greater extent.on the contrary, when there is a disagreement between the two, even if the partner makes a high bet, it has little effect on the decision of the other party.using fMRI scans, the researchers found that the posteromedial prefrontal cortex of the brain Cortex (PMFC) plays a key role, that is, when the team reaches a consensus, it is easy to accept other people's opinions. When there are different opinions, the sensitivity of the brain PMFC region to the other party's opinions is reduced, that is, the final bet has little to do with the brain activity of PMFC.the sensitivity of the strength of uncertain (relative to confirmation) opinions in PMFC decreased. This study revealed a mechanism of confirmation bias.evidence shows that when the opinion is confirmed, we do not change our confidence in judgment because of the power of others' uncertain opinion. When the opinion is uncertain, the sensitivity of PMFC to the strength of other people's opinion decreases, which makes people more firm in their own judgment.in conclusion, the existing judgments change the neural representation of information intensity, making individuals less likely to change their views in the face of disagreement.first author Andreas Kappes points out that the study may help to understand some puzzling observations in fields such as science and politics. For example, climate scientists have been confident that climate change is man-made, but the proportion of people who agree with this view has declined significantly.in addition, it helps people understand the basic characteristics of belief formation.end reference: [1] strength of construction won't help to implement when people disagree [2] confirmation bias in the utilization of others' opinion strength