AI RESEARCH
Confidence Freeze: Early Success Induces a Metastable Decoupling of Metacognition and Behaviour
arXiv CS.LG
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ArXi:2603.21043v1 Announce Type: new Humans must flexibly arbitrate between exploring alternatives and exploiting learned strategies, yet they frequently exhibit maladaptive persistence by continuing to execute failing strategies despite accumulating negative evidence. Here we propose a ``confidence-freeze'' account that reframes such persistence as a dynamic learning state rather than a stable dispositional trait.