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Record W4414293864 · doi:10.31234/osf.io/hveac_v3

An entropy model of decision uncertainty

2025· preprint· en· W4414293864 on OpenAlexfundno aff
Keith A. Schneider

Bibliographic record

Venuenot available
Typepreprint
Languageen
FieldDecision Sciences
TopicComplex Systems and Decision Making
Canadian institutionsnot available
FundersNatural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of CanadaNational Institutes of Health
KeywordsEntropy (arrow of time)Measurement uncertaintyIntrospectionJoint entropyKullback–Leibler divergenceConditional entropyTransfer entropyUncertainty analysis

Abstract

fetched live from OpenAlex

Studying metacognition, the introspection of one’s own decisions, can provide insights into the mechanisms underlying the decisions. Here we show that observers’ uncertainty about their decisions incorporates both the entropy of the stimuli and the entropy of their response probabilities across the psychometric function. Describing uncertainty data with a functional form permits the measurement of internal parameters not measurable from the decision responses alone. To test and demonstrate the utility of this novel model, we measured uncertainty in 11 participants as they judged the relative contrast appearance of two stimuli in several experiments employing explicit bias or attentional cues. The entropy model enabled an otherwise intractable quantitative analysis of participants’ uncertainty, which in one case distinguished two comparative judgments that produced nearly identical psychometric functions. In contrast, comparative and equality judgments with different behavioral reports, yielded uncertainty reports that were not significantly different. The entropy model was able to successfully account for uncertainty in these two different types of decisions that resulted in differently shaped psychometric functions, and the entropy contribution from the stimuli, which were identical across experiments, was consistent. An observer’s uncertainty could therefore be measured as the total entropy of the inputs and outputs of the stimulus-response system, i.e. the entropy of the stimuli plus the entropy of the observer’s responses.

Fetched live from OpenAlex and de-inverted. Abstracts are not stored in this database: the inverted indexes are 8.6 GB of the frame’s 9.3 GB of text, and the host has 13 GB free.

How this classification was reachedexpand

Full frame machine prediction

Teacher imitation

Not calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.

metaresearch head score (Codex)0.004
metaresearch head score (Gemma)0.012
Version: metacan-v3-hybrid-931329e0061cValidation status: machine_predicted_unvalidated
Candidate categoriesnone
Consensus categoriesnone
DomainCandidate signal: none · Consensus signal: none
Study designCandidate signal: Theoretical or conceptual · Consensus signal: Theoretical or conceptual
GenreCandidate signal: Methods · Consensus signal: Methods
Teacher disagreement score0.004
Threshold uncertainty score0.019

Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)

CategoryCodexGemma
Metaresearch0.0040.012
Meta-epidemiology (narrow)0.0010.000
Meta-epidemiology (broad)0.0010.001
Bibliometrics0.0010.001
Science and technology studies0.0000.002
Scholarly communication0.0020.004
Open science0.0010.001
Research integrity0.0010.001
Insufficient payload (model declined to judge)0.0030.000

Machine scores (provisional)

The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.

Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.

Opus teacher head0.205
GPT teacher head0.452
Teacher spread0.246 · how far apart the two teachers sit on this one work
Validation statusscore_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from it

Classification

machine, unvalidated

Machine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.

The models applied no category: nothing in the taxonomy fit this work.
Study designTheoretical or conceptual
Domainnot available
GenreMethods

How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".

Quick stats

Citations0
Published2025
Admission routes1
Has abstractyes

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Same topicComplex Systems and Decision MakingFrench-language works237,207