Relating Introspective Accuracy to Individual Differences in Brain Structure

Abstract

The ability to introspect about self-performance is key to human subjective experience, but the neuroanatomical basis of this ability is unknown. Such accurate introspection requires discriminating correct decisions from incorrect ones, a capacity that varies substantially across individuals. We dissociated variation in introspective ability from objective performance in a simple perceptual-decision task, allowing us to determine whether this interindividual variability was associated with a distinct neural basis. We show that introspective ability is correlated with gray matter volume in the anterior prefrontal cortex, a region that shows marked evolutionary development in humans. Moreover, interindividual variation in introspective ability is also correlated with white-matter microstructure connected with this area of the prefrontal cortex. Our findings point to a focal neuroanatomical substrate for introspective ability, a substrate distinct from that supporting primary perception.

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

“…This includes Brodmann area 10 and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, known to play an important role in linking objective performance to subjective beliefs (2,21). However, beyond these specific nodes, we also observed an increase in connectivity with an individual's type-II performance in a much broader network including ventrolateral PFC, bilateral inferior parietal lobules, angular gyrus, and bilateral precentral gyrus.…”

“…1A) (3). Type-II performance can be quantified by measuring the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (A ROC ) (2,21). This nonparametric test estimates the degree of overlap between confidence distributions for correct and error trials.…”

“…Confidence judgments can be severely distorted: People may lack confidence when responding correctly and reciprocally, be very confident of incorrect responses (1)(2)(3)(4)(5)(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.…”

Episodic memory and executive functions in cognitively healthy individuals display distinct neuroanatomical correlates which are differentially modulated by aging

“…Moreover, when examining the cerebral GMv correlates of EM in younger individuals of our sample, this set of regions included the bilateral angular gyrus, which is also a prominent structure within the DMN. The DMN mediates internal cognitive processes such as self‐referenced thoughts (Davey, Pujol, & Harrison, 2016) and introspective accuracy (Fleming, Weil, Nagy, Dolan, & Rees, 2010). Importantly, it has been shown that deactivation during encoding in the DMN regions, including posterior middle temporal cortices, predicted successful retrieval for the studied items (Chai, Ofen, Gabrieli, & Whitfield‐Gabrieli, 2014; Daselaar, Prince, & Cabeza, 2004; Kim, Daselaar, & Cabeza, 2010), that is, the ability to suppress their response during active memory tasks constitutes a prerequisite for efficient recall.…”

Bodily self-consciousness, and the primacy of self related signals such as the 1stperson perspective and self-location

“…There is currently increasing interest in meta-cognition with developments in its empirical study (Lau, 2008) and quantification (Galvin, Podd, Drga, & Whitmore, 2003). Although, as yet, we know little of relevant neural mechanisms, the prefrontal cortex is strongly implicated (Del Cul, Dehaene, Reyes, Bravo, & Slachevsky, 2009;Fleming, Weil, Nagy, Dolan, & Rees, 2010).…”