Prefrontal Contributions to Metacognition in Perceptual Decision Making

Fleming, Stephen M.; Huijgen, Josefien; Dolan, Raymond J.

doi:10.1523/jneurosci.6489-11.2012

Cited by 353 publications

(382 citation statements)

References 62 publications

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“…More generally, our work on functional brain networks and Garfinkel et al's behavioral studies (34), are only the first steps to understanding what may be a complex pattern of interactions between the systems of metacognitive ability and interoception. This may help bridge the fertile but largely disconnected literature of metacognitive ability (2,(35)(36)(37) and interoception (17,32,33,38).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 95%

Distinct patterns of functional brain connectivity correlate with objective performance and subjective beliefs

Barttfeld

Wicker

McAleer

et al. 2013

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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The degree of correspondence between objective performance and subjective beliefs varies widely across individuals. Here we demonstrate that functional brain network connectivity measured before exposure to a perceptual decision task covaries with individual objective (type-I performance) and subjective (type-II performance) accuracy. Increases in connectivity with type-II performance were observed in networks measured while participants directed attention inward (focus on respiration), but not in networks measured during states of neutral (resting state) or exogenous attention. Measures of type-I performance were less sensitive to the subjects' specific attentional states from which the networks were derived. These results suggest the existence of functional brain networks indexing objective performance and accuracy of subjective beliefs distinctively expressed in a set of stable mental states.D ecisions often bear upon other decisions, as when we seek a second medical opinion before undergoing a risky surgical intervention. These "metadecisions" are mediated by confidence judgments, the degree to which decision makers consider that their choices are likely to be correct. Confidence judgments can be severely distorted: People may lack confidence when responding correctly and reciprocally, be very confident of incorrect responses (1-6). In classic perceptual tasks followed by a confidence report, one can distinguish between (i) the ability to correctly discriminate between stimulus alternatives, referred to as type-I performance, and (ii) the ability of confidence judgments to discriminate between correct and incorrect responses, referred to as type-II performance (2, 7). The objective of this work is to investigate whether functional brain networks distinctively covary with type-I and type-II performance.Network organization of resting state functional brain activity can account for individual differences in several cognitive functions (8-13). These studies rely on networks derived from the "resting state" (14, 15). Recently, Tang et al. (16) showed the formation of distinct brain networks in the maintenance of three welldefined mental states that vary the focus of attention: resting, alert, and meditation states (16). Here we capitalize on this idea, deriving functional brain networks for each individual, varying the focus of attention toward internal states (interoception, focus on respiration), external stimulus (exteroception), or remaining in a resting state of free thought.Interoception (generically defined as the ability to detect subtle changes in bodily systems, including muscles, skin, joints, and viscera) (17), is closely related to metacognition of agency (18,19). We reasoned that this may more generally reflect a partially overlapping system regulating attention to internal states, including interoception (focus on body systems) and metacognitive ability (focus on internal thoughts and feelings). Hence, our working hypothesis is that increases in functional connectivity with the quality of subject...

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 95%

Distinct patterns of functional brain connectivity correlate with objective performance and subjective beliefs

Barttfeld

Wicker

McAleer

et al. 2013

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…Trials that strongly involved manipulation of WM content were characterized by a decrease in metacognition. Not surprisingly, metacognition also is associated with activation in prefrontal areas (Fleming, Huijgen, & Dolan, 2012). Taken together, it cannot be determined whether increased demands on executive WM truly affect the threshold for visual awareness or merely influence subsequent stages such as deciding on a response or assessing the metacognitive quality of the visual awareness.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 98%

Different effects of executive and visuospatial working memory on visual consciousness

Loof

Poppe

Cleeremans

et al. 2015

Atten Percept Psychophys

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Consciousness and working memory are two widely studied cognitive phenomena. Although they have been closely tied on a theoretical and neural level, empirical work that investigates their relation is largely lacking. In this study, the relationship between visual consciousness and different working memory components is investigated by using a dual-task paradigm. More specifically, while participants were performing a visual detection task to measure their visual awareness threshold, they had to concurrently perform either an executive or visuospatial working memory task. We hypothesized that visual consciousness would be hindered depending on the type and the size of the load in working memory. Results showed that maintaining visuospatial content in working memory hinders visual awareness, irrespective of the amount of information maintained. By contrast, the detection threshold was progressively affected under increasing executive load. Interestingly, increasing executive load had a generic effect on detection speed, calling into question whether its obstructing effect is specific to the visual awareness threshold. Together, these results indicate that visual consciousness depends differently on executive and visuospatial working memory.

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“…A number of recent studies have identified the neural correlates of confidence in perceptual and economic decision-making (44,45). Importantly, these studies focused on single participants, leaving open the possibility that confidence as communicated in social interaction may have a different set of neural correlates, or, at least, involve other stages of processing (46).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Equality bias impairs collective decision-making across cultures

Mahmoodi

Bang

Olsen

et al. 2015

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

123

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We tend to think that everyone deserves an equal say in a debate. This seemingly innocuous assumption can be damaging when we make decisions together as part of a group. To make optimal decisions, group members should weight their differing opinions according to how competent they are relative to one another; whenever they differ in competence, an equal weighting is suboptimal. Here, we asked how people deal with individual differences in competence in the context of a collective perceptual decision-making task. We developed a metric for estimating how participants weight their partner's opinion relative to their own and compared this weighting to an optimal benchmark. Replicated across three countries (Denmark, Iran, and China), we show that participants assigned nearly equal weights to each other's opinions regardless of true differences in their competence-even when informed by explicit feedback about their competence gap or under monetary incentives to maximize collective accuracy. This equality bias, whereby people behave as if they are as good or as bad as their partner, is particularly costly for a group when a competence gap separates its members.social cognition | joint decision-making | bias | equality

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Prefrontal Contributions to Metacognition in Perceptual Decision Making

Cited by 353 publications

References 62 publications

Distinct patterns of functional brain connectivity correlate with objective performance and subjective beliefs

Distinct patterns of functional brain connectivity correlate with objective performance and subjective beliefs

Different effects of executive and visuospatial working memory on visual consciousness

Equality bias impairs collective decision-making across cultures

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