Neural basis of concurrent deliberation toward a choice and degree of confidence.

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Decision confidence plays a key role in flexible behavior and (meta)cognition, but its underlying neural mechanisms remain elusive. To uncover the latent dynamics of confidence formation at the level of population activity, we designed a decision task for nonhuman primates that measures choice, reaction time, and confidence with a single eye movement on every trial. Monkey behavior was well fit by a bounded accumulator model instantiating parallel processing of evidence, rejecting a serial model in which the choice is resolved first followed by post-decision accumulation for confidence. Neurons in area LIP reflected concurrent accumulation, exhibiting covariation of choice and confidence signals across the population, and within-trial dynamics consistent with parallel updating at near-zero time lag. The results demonstrate that monkeys can process a single stream of evidence in service of two computational goals simultaneously-a categorical decision and associated level of confidence-and illuminate a candidate neural substrate for this ability.