Metacognition and awareness

I know that I know. But do I know that I do not know?

Metacognition-the ability of individuals to monitor one's own cognitive performance and decisions-is often studied empirically based on the retrospective confidence ratings. In experimental research, participants are asked to report how sure they are in their response, or to report how well their performance in high-level cognitive or low-level perceptual tasks is. These retrospective confidence ratings are used as a measure of monitoring effectiveness: larger difference in confidence ratings assigned to correct and incorrect responses reflects better ability to estimate the likelihood of making an error by an experiment participant, or better metacognitive monitoring ability. We discuss this underlying assumption and provide some methodological consideration that might interfere with interpretation of results, depending on what is being asked to evaluate, how the confidence response is elicited, and the overall proportion of different trial types within one experimental session. We conclude that mixing trials on which decision confidence is assigned when positive evidence needs to be evaluated and the trials on which absence of positive evidence needs to be evaluated should be avoided. These considerations might be important when designing experimental work to explore metacognitive efficiency using retrospective confidence ratings.

Impact of Metacognitive and Psychological Factors in Learning-Induced Plasticity of Resting State Networks

Simple Summary

Connections within the brain can reshape themselves to rapidly adapt to new learning. We aimed to demonstrate that these reconfigurations do not only reflect a memory trace but a more global response to other processes involved in learning. Furthermore, we investigated why individuals do not present the same ability both in learning and in connection plasticity. Present results indicate that brain rapid reconfiguration is not only linked to learning abilities but also to the process of confidence in learning. Factors such as age, education, and anxiety also appear to influence the brain’s response to learning and explain part of the variability observed between subjects. This study revealed important links between brain and psychological functioning and how they influence each other which highlights the need for considering psychological factors both in education and in psychiatric disorders.

Abstract

While resting-state networks are able to rapidly adapt to experiences and stimuli, it is currently unknown whether metacognitive processes such as confidence in learning and psychological temperament may influence this process. We explore the neural traces of confidence in learning and their variability by: (1) targeting rs-networks in which functional connectivity (FC) modifications induced by a learning task were associated either with the participant’s performance or confidence in learning; and (2) investigating the links between FC changes and psychological temperament. Thirty healthy individuals underwent neuropsychological and psychometric evaluations as well as rs-fMRI scans before and after a visuomotor associative learning task. Confidence in learning was positively associated with the degree of FC changes in 11 connections including the cerebellar, frontal, parietal, and subcortical areas. Variability in FC changes was linked to the individual’s level of anxiety sensitivity. The present findings indicate that reconfigurations of resting state networks linked to confidence in learning differ from those linked to learning accuracy. In addition, certain temperament characteristics appear to influence these reconfigurations.

The role of metacognition in recognition of the content of statistical learning

Despite theoretical debate on the extent to which statistical learning is incidental or modulated by explicit instructions and conscious awareness of the content of statistical learning, no study has ever investigated the metacognition of statistical learning. We used an artificial language-learning paradigm and a segmentation task that required splitting a continuous stream of syllables into discrete recurrent constituents. During this task, statistical learning potentially produces knowledge of discrete constituents as well as about statistical regularities that are embodied in familiarization input. We measured metacognitive sensitivity and efficiency (using hierarchical Bayesian modelling to estimate metacognitive sensitivity and efficiency) to probe the role of conscious awareness in recognition of constituents extracted from the familiarization input and recognition of novel constituents embodying the same statistical regularities as these extracted constituents. Novel constituents are conceptualized to represent recognition of statistical structure rather than recognition of items retrieved from memory as whole constituents. We found that participants are equally sensitive to both types of learning products, yet subject them to varying degrees of conscious processing during the postfamiliarization recognition test. The data point to the contribution of conscious awareness to at least some types of statistical learning content.

I know that I know nothing: Cortical thickness and functional connectivity underlying meta-ignorance ability in pre-schoolers

Metacognition plays a pivotal role in human development. The ability to realize that we do not know something, or meta-ignorance, emerges after approximately five years of age. We sought for the brain systems that underlie the developmental emergence of this ability in a preschool sample. Twenty-four children aged between five and six years answered questions under three conditions. In the critical partial knowledge condition, an experimenter first showed two toys to a child, then announced that she would place one of them in a box, out of sight from the child. The experimenter then asked the child whether she knew which toy was in the box. Children who gave consistently correct answers to this question (n = 9) showed greater cortical thickness in a cluster within left medial orbitofrontal cortex than children who did not (n = 15). Further, seed-based functional connectivity analyses of the brain during resting state revealed that this region is functionally connected to the medial orbitofrontal gyrus, posterior cingulate gyrus and precuneus, and mid- and inferior temporal gyri. This finding suggests that the default mode network, critically through its prefrontal regions, supports introspective processing. It leads to the emergence of metacognitive monitoring allowing children to explicitly report their own ignorance.

A longitudinal study in learning preferences and academic performance in first year medical school

This is a longitudinal study of first year medical students that investigates the relationship between the pattern change of the learning preferences and academic performance. Using the visual, auditory, reading-writing, and kinesthetic inventory at the beginning of the first and second year for the same class, it was found that within the first year, 36% of the class remained unimodal (single) modality learners (SS), 14% changed from unimodal to multimodality learners (SM), 27% changed from multimodality to unimodal modality learners (MS) and 21% remained as multimodality learners (MM). Among the academic performance through subsequent didactic blocks from Clinical Anatomy, Cell and Subcellular Processes to Medical Neuroscience during first year, the SM group made more significant improvement compared to the SS group. Semi-structured interview results from the SM group showed that students made this transition between the Clinical Anatomy course and the middle of the Medical Neuroscience course, in an effort to improve their performance. This study suggests that the transition from unimodal to multimodality learning among academically struggling students improved their academic performance in the first year of medical school. Therefore, this may be considered as part of academic advising tools for struggling students to improve their academic performances. Anat Sci Educ 11: 488-495. © 2017 American Association of Anatomists.

Confirmatory Factor Analysis of the Inventory of Personality Organization-Reality Testing Subscale

The reality testing dimension of the Inventory of Personality Organization, the IPO-RT, has emerged as an important index of proneness to reality testing deficits. However, to date few studies have examined the factorial structure of the IPO-RT in isolation. This is an important and necessary development because studies use the IPO-RT as a discrete measure. Additionally, psychometric evaluation of the IPO suggests alternative factorial solutions. Specifically, recent work supports multidimensionality, whereas initial IPO assessment evinced a unidimensional structure. Accordingly, this study, using a heterogeneous sample (N = 652), tested the fit of several factorial models (one-factor, four-factor oblique, second-order, and bifactor) via maximum likelihood with bootstrapping due to multivariate non-normality. Analysis revealed superior fit for the bifactor solution (correlated errors) (CFI = 0.965, SRMR = 0.036, RMSEA = 0.042). This model comprised a general reality testing dimension alongside four subfactors (auditory and visual hallucinations, delusional thinking, social deficits, and confusion). Inter-factor correlations were in the moderate range. Item loadings and omega reliability supported the notion that the IPO-RT emphasizes a single latent construct. The model demonstrated invariance across gender and partial age invariance. Overall, from a psychometric perspective, the IPO-RT functioned effectively at both global and, to an extent, factorial levels. Findings recommend that the IPO-RT should be scored as a total scale, and rather than treat subscales independently, future studies should consider examining factor variance alongside overall scale scores.

Attention and cognitive penetrability: The epistemic consequences of attention as a form of metacognitive regulation

A recent approach to the cognitive penetrability of perception, i.e. the possibility that perception is shaped top-down by high-level cognitive states such as beliefs and desires, proposes to understand the phenomenon on the basis of its consequences, among which there is a challenge for the epistemic role of perceptual experience in justifying beliefs (Stokes, 2015). In this paper, I argue that some attentional phenomena qualify as cases of cognitive penetrability under this consequentialist approach. I present a popular theory of attention, the biased-competition theory, on which basis I establish that attention is a form of metacognitive regulation. I argue that attention (as metacognitive regulation) involves the right kind of cognitive-perceptual relation and leads to the same epistemic consequences as other more traditional versions of cognitive penetrability.

Higher-order awareness, misrepresentation and function

Conscious mental states are states we are in some way aware of. I compare higher-order theories of consciousness, which explain consciousness by appeal to such higher-order awareness (HOA), and first-order theories, which do not, and I argue that higher-order theories have substantial explanatory advantages. The higher-order nature of our awareness of our conscious states suggests an analogy with the metacognition that figures in the regulation of psychological processes and behaviour. I argue that, although both consciousness and metacognition involve higher-order psychological states, they have little more in common. One thing they do share is the possibility of misrepresentation; just as metacognitive processing can misrepresent one's cognitive states and abilities, so the HOA in virtue of which one's mental states are conscious can, and sometimes does, misdescribe those states. A striking difference between the two, however, has to do with utility for psychological processing. Metacognition has considerable benefit for psychological processing; in contrast, it is unlikely that there is much, if any, utility to mental states' being conscious over and above the utility those states have when they are not conscious.

Spatial inhibition and the visual cortex: a magnetic resonance spectroscopy imaging study

INTRODUCTION

Deficits in processing spatial information have been observed in clinical populations who have abnormalities within the dopamine (DA) system. As psychostimulants such as methamphetamine (MA) are particularly neurotoxic to the dopaminergic system it was of interest to examine the performance of MA-dependent individuals on a task of spatial attention.

METHOD

51 MA-dependent subjects and 22 age-matched non-substance abusing control subjects were tested on a Spatial Stroop attention test. MR Spectroscopy (MRS) imaging data were analyzed from 32 MA abusers and 13 controls.

RESULTS

No group differences in response time or accuracy emerged on the behavioral task with both groups exhibiting equivalent slowing when the word meaning and the spatial location of the word were in conflict. MRS imaging data from the MA abusers revealed a strong inverse correlation between NAA/Cr ratios in the Primary Visual Cortex (PVC) and spatial interference (p=0.0001). Moderate inverse correlations were also seen in the Anterior Cingulate Cortex (ACC) (p=0.02). No significant correlations were observed in the controls, perhaps due to the small sample of imaging data available (n=13).

DISCUSSION

The strong correlation between spatial conflict suppression and NAA/Cr levels within the PVC in the MA-dependent individuals suggests that preserved neuronal integrity within the PVC of stimulant abusers may modulate cognitive mechanisms that process implicit spatial information.

'Slowing down when you should': initiators and influences of the transition from the routine to the effortful

BACKGROUND

'Slowing down when you should' has been described as marking the transition from 'automatic' to 'effortful' functioning in professional practice. The ability to 'slow down' is hypothesized as an important factor in expert judgment. This study explored the nature of the 'slowing down' phenomenon intraoperatively and its link to surgical judgment.

METHODS

Twenty-eight surgeons across different surgical specialties were interviewed from four hospitals affiliated with a large urban university. In grounded theory tradition, data were collected and analyzed in an iterative design, using a constant comparative approach. Emergent themes were identified and a conceptual framework was developed.

RESULTS

Surgeons recognized the 'slowing down' phenomenon acknowledging its link to judgment and described two main initiators. Proactively planned 'slowing down' moments were anticipated preoperatively from operation-specific (tying superior thyroid vessels) or patient-specific (imaging abnormality) factors. Surgeons also described situationally responsive 'slowing down' moments to unexpected events (encountering an adherent tumor). Surgeons described several influencing factors on the slowing down phenomenon (fatigue, confidence).

CONCLUSIONS

This framework for 'slowing down' assists in making tangible the previously elusive construct of surgical judgment, providing a vocabulary for considering the events surrounding these critical moments in surgery, essential for teaching, self-reflection, and patient safety.

The phenomenology of endogenous orienting

Can we build endogenous expectations about the locus of occurrence of a target without being able to describe them? Participants performed cue-target detection tasks with different proportions of valid and invalid trials, without being informed of these proportions, and demonstrated typical endogenous effects. About half were subsequently able to correctly describe the cue-target relationships ('verbalizers'). However, even non-verbalizer participants showed endogenous orienting with peripheral cues (Experiments 1 and 3), not depending solely on practice (Experiment 2). Explicit instructions did not bring about dramatic advantages in performance (Experiment 4). With central symbolic cues, only verbalizers showed reliable endogenous effects (Experiment 5). We concluded that endogenous orienting with peripheral cues can occur independently of participants developing explicit hypotheses about the cue-target relationships.

Awareness and metacognition

Kentridge and Heywood (this issue) extend the concept of metacognition to include unconscious processes. We acknowledge the possible contribution of unconscious processes, but favor a central role of awareness in metacognition. We welcome Shimamura's (this issue) extension of the concept of metacognitive regulation to include aspects of working memory, and its relation to executive attention. Copyright 2000 Academic Press.