Causal evidence for mnemonic metacognition in human precuneus

Abstract

Metacognition is the capacity to introspectively monitor and control 31 one's own cognitive processes. Previous anatomical and functional neuroimaging 32 findings implicated the important role of precuneus in metacognition processing, 33 especially during mnemonic tasks. However, the issue of whether this medial parietal 34 cortex is a domain-specific region that supports mnemonic metacognition remains 35 controversial. Here, we focally disrupted this parietal area with repetitive transcranial 36 magnetic stimulation in healthy participants of both sexes, seeking to ascertain its 37 functional necessity for metacognition for memory versus perceptual decisions. 38Perturbing the precuneal activity impaired the metacognitive efficiency selectively in 39 the memory judgment of temporal-order, but not in perceptual discrimination. 40Moreover, the correlation in individuals' metacognitive efficiency between the domains 41 disappeared when the precuneus was perturbed. Together with the previous finding that 42 lesion to the anterior prefrontal cortex impairs perceptual but not mnemonic 43 metacognition, we double dissociated the macro-anatomical underpinnings for the two 44 kinds of metacognitive capacity in an interconnected network of brain regions. 45 46 47 Mnemonic metacognition in precuneus 3 SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT: Theories on the neural basis of metacognition have 48 thus far largely centered on the role of prefrontal cortex. Here we refined the theoretical 49 framework through characterizing a unique precuneal involvement in mnemonic 50 metacognition with a noninvasive but inferentially powerful method: transcranial 51 magnetic stimulation. By quantifying meta-cognitive efficiency across two distinct 52 domains (memory vs. perception) that are matched for stimulus characteristics, we 53 reveal an instrumentaland highly selectiverole of the precuneus in mnemonic 54 metacognition. These causal evidence corroborate ample clinical reports that parietal 55 lobe lesions often produce inaccurate self-reports of confidence in memory recollection 56 and establish that the precuneus as a nexus for the introspective ability to evaluate the 57 success of memory judgment in humans. 58 59 60 Mnemonic metacognition in precuneus 4 INTRODUCTION 61 62Metacognition is the ability to introspectively monitor and control one's own 63 cognitive processes, which is important to guide adaptive behavior, social interaction 64 and mental health (Flavell, 1979; Frith, 2012; Nelson, 1990; Teasdale et al., 2002). 65 Metacognitive capacity has been mostly assessed by self-reporting of level of 66 confidence in one's own decisions that correlate with objective performance. The initial 67 task is often called "type 1 task" and the ensuing confidence judgment task is called 68 "type 2 task" (Galvin, Podd, Drga, & Whitmore, 2003). A widely used approach to 69 estimate the metacognitive efficiency without having it confounded by the primary task 70 performance and response bias is to calculate the comparison between the type 1 71 sensitiv...

Hydrocortisone decreases metacognitive efficiency independent of perceived stress

“…Fleming et al 55 , for example, found evidence that individuals with anterior prefrontal cortex lesions, which performed two metacognitive tasks in two different domains (memory vs. perception), showed only a deficit in perceptual metacognition. In this vein, Ye et al 56 investigate the role of the medial parietal cortex (precuneus) in the metacognitive capacity of individuals in memory tasks and visual perception. Interestingly, the disruption of activity through transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) only negatively impacts metacognitive efficiency on memory tasks.…”

How Can Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation Be Used to Modulate Episodic Memory?: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

“…For example, while the meta-analysis on accuracy measures failed to reveal a main effect or interaction with the cortical region that was targeted or the memory process that was stimulated, based on the systematic review of the published studies, it seemed to be the case that several studies found that applying rTMS to regions of parietal cortex affected the subjective experience of remembering as evidenced by modulation of confidence ratings even in the absence of effects on objective measures of accuracy. For example, Ye et al (2018) recorded participants playing an action-adventure video game and then applied offline 1 Hz rTMS at 110% AMT to the precuneus prior to snapshot images from the video game and then tested subjects' temporal order memory and confidence ratings. The authors found decreases in confidence ratings during retrieval following precuneus compared to vertex stimulation, despite no differences in memory performance (Ye et al, 2018).…”

“…For example, Ye et al (2018) recorded participants playing an action-adventure video game and then applied offline 1 Hz rTMS at 110% AMT to the precuneus prior to snapshot images from the video game and then tested subjects' temporal order memory and confidence ratings. The authors found decreases in confidence ratings during retrieval following precuneus compared to vertex stimulation, despite no differences in memory performance (Ye et al, 2018).…”

Conscious Agency from Fundamentally Embodied Minds: From Free Energy to Free Will and Back Again

“…2. The brain not only infers mental spaces (Haun & Tononi, 2019;O'Reilly et al, 2017;Utevsky et al, 2014;Williford et al, 2018;Ye et al, 2018), but it populates these spaces with representations of sensations and actions, so providing a basis for causal reasoning and planning via mental simulations. 3.…”