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

Taking time: Auditory statistical learning benefits from distributed exposure

In an auditory statistical learning paradigm, listeners learn to partition a continuous stream of syllables by discovering the repeating syllable patterns that constitute the speech stream. Here, we ask whether auditory statistical learning benefits from spaced exposure compared with massed exposure. In a longitudinal online study on Prolific, we exposed 100 participants to the regularities in a spaced way (i.e., with exposure blocks spread out over 3 days) and another 100 in a massed way (i.e., with all exposure blocks lumped together on a single day). In the exposure phase, participants listened to streams composed of pairs while responding to a target syllable. The spaced and massed groups exhibited equal learning during exposure, as indicated by a comparable response-time advantage for predictable target syllables. However, in terms of resulting long-term knowledge, we observed a benefit from spaced exposure. Following a 2-week delay period, we tested participants' knowledge of the pairs in a forced-choice test. While both groups performed above chance, the spaced group had higher accuracy. Our findings speak to the importance of the timing of exposure to structured input and also for statistical learning outside of the laboratory (e.g., in language development), and imply that current investigations of auditory statistical learning likely underestimate human statistical learning abilities.

Longitudinal study of metacognition's role in self-efficacy and hope development

Self-regulation is a critical component of adaptive functioning, and individual differences in traits like metacognitive self-awareness (MCS), general self-efficacy (GSE), and hope play significant roles in influencing this ability. Self-awareness of cognitive biases is particularly relevant as it may enhance one's capacity to manage challenges and pursue goals effectively. Prior research suggests that higher levels of MCS are associated with improved self-regulation, greater self-efficacy, and stronger hope for success. This longitudinal study sought to explore the development of self-regulation across 3 years of college education, with a specific focus on the role of MCS in shaping the trajectories of GSE and hope. Over 400 undergraduates were assessed five times throughout this period. Growth curve and causal mediation analyses were employed to examine the extent to which MCS contributed to changes in GSE and hope. Our findings indicate that self-awareness of cognitive biases (MCS) significantly influences the development of self-efficacy. Participants with higher levels of MCS exhibited a slightly faster increase in coping skills than those with lower levels. Additionally, MCS moderated the development of hope: individuals with above-median MCS scores showed a faster increase in hope, whereas those with below-median scores experienced an irregular decrease. In conclusion, MCS serves as a valuable resource for developing self-efficacy and hope. However, the influence of real-life challenges on hope appears to depend on an individual's metacognitive skills, with better outcomes observed among those with higher MCS.

Hands of confidence: When gestures increase confidence in spatial problem-solving

This study examined whether the metacognitive system monitors the potential positive effects of gestures on spatial thinking. Participants (N = 59, 31F, Mage = 21.67) performed a mental rotation task, consisting of 24 problems varying in difficulty, and they evaluated their confidence in their answers to problems in either gesture or control conditions. The results revealed that performance and confidence were higher in the gesture condition, in which the participants were asked to use their gestures during problem-solving, compared with the control condition, extending the literature by evidencing gestures' role in metacognition. Yet, the effect was only evident for females, who already performed worse than males, and when the problems were difficult. Encouraging gestures adversely affected performance and confidence in males. Such results suggest that gestures selectively influence cognition and metacognition and highlight the importance of task-related (i.e., difficulty) and individual-related variables (i.e., sex) in elucidating the links between gestures, confidence, and spatial thinking.

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.

Linking the neural basis of distributional statistical learning with transitional statistical learning: The paradox of attention

Statistical learning, the process of tracking distributional information and discovering embedded patterns, is traditionally regarded as a form of implicit learning. However, recent studies proposed that both implicit (attention-independent) and explicit (attention-dependent) learning systems are involved in statistical learning. To understand the role of attention in statistical learning, the current study investigates the cortical processing of distributional patterns in speech across local and global contexts. We then ask how these cortical responses relate to statistical learning behavior in a word segmentation task. We found Event-Related Potential (ERP) evidence of pre-attentive processing of both the local (mismatching negativity) and global distributional information (late discriminative negativity). However, as speech elements became less frequent and more surprising, some participants showed an involuntary attentional shift, reflected in a P3a response. Individuals who displayed attentive neural tracking of distributional information showed faster learning in a speech statistical learning task. These results suggest that an involuntary attentional shift might play a facilitatory, but not essential, role in statistical learning.

Cognitive mechanisms of statistical learning and segmentation of continuous sensory input

Two classes of cognitive mechanisms have been proposed to explain segmentation of continuous sensory input into discrete recurrent constituents: clustering and boundary-finding mechanisms. Clustering mechanisms are based on identifying frequently co-occurring elements and merging them together as parts that form a single constituent. Bracketing (or boundary-finding) mechanisms work by identifying rarely co-occurring elements that correspond to the boundaries between discrete constituents. In a series of behavioral experiments, I tested which mechanisms are at play in the visual modality both during segmentation of a continuous syllabic sequence into discrete word-like constituents and during recognition of segmented constituents. Additionally, I explored conscious awareness of the products of statistical learning—whole constituents versus merged clusters of smaller subunits. My results suggest that both online segmentation and offline recognition of extracted constituents rely on detecting frequently co-occurring elements, a process likely based on associative memory. However, people are more aware of having learnt whole tokens than of recurrent composite clusters.

Measuring metacognitive performance: type 1 performance dependence and test-retest reliability

Research on metacognition-thinking about thinking-has grown rapidly and fostered our understanding of human cognition in healthy individuals and clinical populations. Of central importance is the concept of metacognitive performance, which characterizes the capacity of an individual to estimate and report the accuracy of primary (type 1) cognitive processes or actions ensuing from these processes. Arguably one of the biggest challenges for measures of metacognitive performance is their dependency on objective type 1 performance, although more recent methods aim to address this issue. The present work scrutinizes the most popular metacognitive performance measures in terms of two critical characteristics: independence of type 1 performance and test-retest reliability. Analyses of data from the Confidence Database (total N = 6912) indicate that no current metacognitive performance measure is independent of type 1 performance. The shape of this dependency is largely reproduced by extending current models of metacognition with a source of metacognitive noise. Moreover, the reliability of metacognitive performance measures is highly sensitive to the combination of type 1 performance and trial number. Importantly, trial numbers frequently employed in metacognition research are too low to achieve an acceptable level of test-retest reliability. Among common task characteristics, simultaneous choice and confidence reports most strongly improved reliability. Finally, general recommendations about design choices and analytical remedies for studies investigating metacognitive performance are provided.