Neural Convergence of Graded Belief and Binary Belief Uncertainty

Belief was defined by William James as “the psychological process or function of cognizing reality”, and the recent philosophical literature has emphasized that there are two types of belief: categorical and graded. The relationship between these two belief types is complex, and it is often assumed that the degrees of graded belief reflect confidence. However, this claim has not yet been addressed empirically. In this functional magnetic resonance imaging study we let N=29 young healthy participants rate their graded belief in 16 propositions from the conspiracy theory spectrum and estimated certainty scores from the ratings that we associated with brain activation during the presentation of the propositions. We found associations of uncertainty (i.e. negative associations with certainty scores) with brain activation in the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex (dmPFC), right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC), and posterior parietal cortex. The clusters in the dmPFC and dlPFC replicated associations with explicit ratings of uncertainty in binary belief decisions we identified in a prior study on domain-general belief. These results provide empirical evidence for a link between graded belief and uncertainty in human cognition and emphasize the role of doubt as a relevant process to take into account in concepts of graded belief.