159 results on '"Stephen M. Fleming"'
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2. Changing minds about climate change: a pervasive role for domain-general metacognition
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Sophie De Beukelaer, Neza Vehar, Max Rollwage, Stephen M. Fleming, and Manos Tsakiris
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History of scholarship and learning. The humanities ,AZ20-999 ,Social Sciences - Abstract
Abstract Updating one’s beliefs about the causes and effects of climate change is crucial for altering attitudes and behaviours. Importantly, metacognitive abilities - insight into the (in)correctness of one’s beliefs- play a key role in the formation of polarised beliefs. We here aimed at investigated the role of metacognition in changing beliefs about climate change. To that end, we focused on the role of domain-general and domain-specific metacognition in updating prior beliefs about climate change across the spectrum of climate change scepticism. We also considered the role of how climate science is communicated in the form of textual or visuo-textual presentations. We asked two large US samples to perform a perceptual decision-making task (to assess domain-general decision-making and metacognitive abilities. They next performed a belief-updating task, where they were exposed to good and bad news about climate change and we asked them about their beliefs and their updating. Lastly, they completed a series of questionnaires probing their attitudes to climate change. We show that climate change scepticism is associated with differences in domain-general as well as domain-specific metacognitive abilities. Moreover, domain-general metacognitive sensitivity influenced belief updating in an asymmetric way: lower domain-general metacognition decreased the updating of prior beliefs, especially in the face of negative evidence. Our findings highlight the role of metacognitive failures in revising erroneous beliefs about climate change and point to their adverse social effects. more...
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- 2023
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3. Neurocomputational mechanisms of confidence in self and others
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Dan Bang, Rani Moran, Nathaniel D. Daw, and Stephen M. Fleming
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Science - Abstract
Estimating confidence in the decision making ability of others is important for cooperative behaviour. Here the authors combine computational modelling and fMRI to investigate how the brain supports this process. more...
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- 2022
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4. Low self-esteem and the formation of global self-performance estimates in emerging adulthood
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Marion Rouault, Geert-Jan Will, Stephen M. Fleming, and Raymond J. Dolan
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Neurosciences. Biological psychiatry. Neuropsychiatry ,RC321-571 - Abstract
Abstract High self-esteem, an overall positive evaluation of self-worth, is a cornerstone of mental health. Previously we showed that people with low self-esteem differentially construct beliefs about momentary self-worth derived from social feedback. However, it remains unknown whether these anomalies extend to constructing beliefs about self-performance in a non-social context, in the absence of external feedback. Here, we examined this question using a novel behavioral paradigm probing subjects’ self-performance estimates with or without external feedback. We analyzed data from young adults (N = 57) who were selected from a larger community sample (N = 2402) on the basis of occupying the bottom or top 10% of a reported self-esteem distribution. Participants performed a series of short blocks involving two perceptual decision-making tasks with varying degrees of difficulty, with or without feedback. At the end of each block, they had to decide on which task they thought they performed best, and gave subjective task ratings, providing two measures of self-performance estimates. We found no robust evidence of differences in objective performance between high and low self-esteem participants. Nevertheless, low self-esteem participants consistently underestimated their performance as expressed in lower subjective task ratings relative to high self-esteem participants. These results provide an initial window onto how cognitive processes underpinning the construction of self-performance estimates across different contexts map on to global dispositions relevant to mental health such as self-esteem. more...
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- 2022
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5. Re-evaluating frontopolar and temporoparietal contributions to detection and discrimination confidence
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Matan Mazor, Chudi Gong, and Stephen M. Fleming
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metacognition ,detection ,confidence ,signal detection ,Science - Abstract
Previously, we identified a subset of regions where the relation between decision confidence and univariate functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) activity was quadratic, with stronger activation for both high and low compared with intermediate levels of confidence. We further showed that, in a subset of these regions, this quadratic modulation appeared only for confidence in detection decisions about the presence or absence of a stimulus, and not for confidence in discrimination decisions about stimulus identity (Mazor et al. 2021). Here, in a pre-registered follow-up experiment, we sought to replicate our original findings and identify the origins of putative detection-specific confidence signals by introducing a novel asymmetric-discrimination condition. The new condition required discriminating two alternatives but was engineered such that the distribution of perceptual evidence was asymmetric, just as in yes/no detection. We successfully replicated the quadratic modulation of subjective confidence in prefrontal, parietal and temporal cortices. However, in contrast with our original report, this quadratic effect was similar in detection and discrimination responses, but stronger in the novel asymmetric-discrimination condition. We interpret our findings as weighing against the detection-specificity of confidence signatures and speculate about possible alternative origins of a quadratic modulation of decision confidence. more...
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- 2023
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6. Confidence drives a neural confirmation bias
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Max Rollwage, Alisa Loosen, Tobias U. Hauser, Rani Moran, Raymond J. Dolan, and Stephen M. Fleming
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Science - Abstract
People often ignore evidence that disconfirms their prior beliefs. Here, the authors investigate the underlying cognitive, computational and neuronal mechanisms of such confirmation bias, and show that high confidence induces a selective neural processing of choice-consistent information. more...
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- 2020
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7. Forming global estimates of self-performance from local confidence
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Marion Rouault, Peter Dayan, and Stephen M. Fleming
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Science - Abstract
Human confidence tracks current performance, but little is known about the formation of ‘global’ self-performance estimates over longer timescales. Here, the authors show that people use local confidence to form global estimates, but tend to underestimate their performance when feedback is absent. more...
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- 2019
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8. Understanding Alzheimer's disease as a disorder of consciousness
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Jonathan D. Huntley, Stephen M. Fleming, Daniel C. Mograbi, Daniel Bor, Lorina Naci, Adrian M. Owen, and Robert Howard
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Alzheimer's disease ,awareness ,consciousness ,Neurology. Diseases of the nervous system ,RC346-429 ,Geriatrics ,RC952-954.6 - Abstract
Abstract People with Alzheimer's disease (AD) demonstrate a range of alterations in consciousness. Changes in awareness of cognitive deficit, self‐awareness, and introspection are seen early in AD, and dysfunction of awareness and arousal progresses with increasing disease severity. However, heterogeneity of deficits between individuals and a lack of empirical studies in people with severe dementia highlight the importance of identifying and applying biomarkers of awareness in AD. Impairments of awareness in AD are associated with neuropathology in regions that overlap with proposed neural correlates of consciousness. Recent developments in consciousness science provide theoretical frameworks and experimental approaches to help further understand the conscious experience of people with AD. Recognition of AD as a disorder of consciousness is overdue, and important to both understand the lived experience of people with AD and to improve care. more...
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- 2021
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9. The Use of Neuroscience and Psychological Measurement in England's Court of Protection
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Andrew McWilliams, Stephen M. Fleming, Anthony S. David, and Gareth Owen
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court of protection ,psychometric ,neuroscience ,neurolaw ,neuroethics ,minimally conscious ,Psychiatry ,RC435-571 - Abstract
The 2005 Mental Capacity Act of England and Wales provides a description in statute law of a test determining if a person lacks “mental capacity” to take a particular decision and describes how the “best interests” of such a person should be determined. The Act established a new Court of Protection (CoP) to hear cases related to the Act and to rule on disputes over mental capacity. The court gathers a range of evidence, including reports from clinicians and experts. Human rights organisations and others have raised concerns about the nature of assessments for incapacity, including the role of brain investigations and psychometric tests.Aim: Describe use and interpretation of structured measures of psychological and brain function in CoP cases, to facilitate standardisation and improvement of practices, both in the courtroom and in non-legal settings.Method: Quantitative review of case law using all CoP judgments published until 2019. The judgments (n = 408) were read to generate a subset referring to structured testing (n = 50). These were then examined in detail to extract the nature of the measurements, circumstances of their use and features of interpretation by the court.Results: The 408 judgments contained 146 references to structured measurement of psychological or brain function, spread over 50 cases. 120/146 (82.2%) referred to “impairment of mind or brain,” with this being part of assessment for incapacity in 58/146 (39.7%). Measurement referred on 25/146 (17.1%) occasions to “functional decision-making abilities.” Structured measures were used most commonly by psychiatrists and psychologists. Psychological measurements comprised 66.4% of measures. Neuroimaging and electrophysiology were presented for diagnostic purposes only. A small number of behavioural measures were used for people with disorders of consciousness. When assessing incapacity, IQ and the Mini-Mental-State Examination were the commonest measures. A standardised measure of mental capacity itself was employed just once. Judges rarely integrated measurements in their capacity determinations.Conclusion: Structured testing of brain and psychological function is used in limited ways in the Court of Protection. Whilst there are challenges in creating measures of capacity, we highlight an opportunity for the neuroscience community to improve objectivity in assessment, inside and outside the courtroom. more...
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- 2020
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10. Postdecision Evidence Integration and Depressive Symptoms
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Madeleine E. Moses-Payne, Max Rollwage, Stephen M. Fleming, and Jonathan P. Roiser
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metacognition ,depression ,self-esteem ,decision making ,confidence ,postdecision evidence ,Psychiatry ,RC435-571 - Abstract
Background: Metacognition, or the ability to reflect on one’s own thoughts, may be important in the development of depressive symptoms. Recent work has reported that depressive symptoms were associated with lower metacognitive bias (overall confidence) during perceptual decision making and a trend toward a positive association with metacognitive sensitivity (the ability to discriminate correct and incorrect decisions). Here, we extended this work, investigating whether confidence judgments are more malleable in individuals experiencing depressive symptoms. We hypothesized that depressive symptoms would be associated with greater adjustment of confidence in light of new evidence presented after a perceptual decision had been made.Methods: Participants (N = 416) were recruited via Amazon Mechanical Turk. Metacognitive confidence was assessed through two perceptual decision-making tasks. In both tasks, participants made a decision about which of two squares contained more dots. In the first task, participants rated their confidence immediately following the decision, whereas in the second task, participants observed new evidence (always in the same direction as initial evidence) before rating their confidence. Participants also completed questionnaires measuring depressive symptoms and self-esteem.Analysis: Metacognitive bias was calculated as overall mean confidence, whereas metacognitive sensitivity was calculated using meta-d’ (a response-bias free measure of how closely confidence tracks task performance) in the first task. Postdecision evidence integration (PDEI) was defined as the change in confidence following postdecision evidence on the second task.Results: Participants with more depressive symptoms made greater confidence adjustments (i.e., greater PDEI) in light of new evidence (β = 0.119, p = 0.045), confirming our main hypothesis. We also observed that lower overall confidence was associated with greater depressive symptoms, although this narrowly missed statistical significance (β = -0.099, p = 0.056), and we did not find an association between metacognitive sensitivity (meta-d’) and depressive symptoms. Notably, self-esteem was robustly associated with overall confidence (β = 0.203, p < 0.001), which remained significant when controlling for depressive symptoms.Conclusions: We found that individuals with depressive symptoms were more influenced by postdecisional evidence, adjusting their confidence more in light of new evidence. Individuals with low self-esteem were less confident about their initial decisions. This study should be replicated in a clinically depressed sample. more...
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- 2019
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11. An Informal Internet Survey on the Current State of Consciousness Science
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Matthias Michel, Stephen M. Fleming, Hakwan Lau, Alan L. F. Lee, Susana Martinez-Conde, Richard E. Passingham, Megan A. K. Peters, Dobromir Rahnev, Claire Sergent, and Kayuet Liu
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consciousness ,consciousness science ,survey ,meta-science ,consciousness research ,Psychology ,BF1-990 - Abstract
The scientific study of consciousness emerged as an organized field of research only a few decades ago. As empirical results have begun to enhance our understanding of consciousness, it is important to find out whether other factors, such as funding for consciousness research and status of consciousness scientists, provide a suitable environment for the field to grow and develop sustainably. We conducted an online survey on people’s views regarding various aspects of the scientific study of consciousness as a field of research. 249 participants completed the survey, among which 80% were in academia, and around 40% were experts in consciousness research. Topics covered include the progress made by the field, funding for consciousness research, job opportunities for consciousness researchers, and the scientific rigor of the work done by researchers in the field. The majority of respondents (78%) indicated that scientific research on consciousness has been making progress. However, most participants perceived obtaining funding and getting a job in the field of consciousness research as more difficult than in other subfields of neuroscience. Overall, work done in consciousness research was perceived to be less rigorous than other neuroscience subfields, but this perceived lack of rigor was not related to the perceived difficulty in finding jobs and obtaining funding. Lastly, we found that, overall, the global workspace theory was perceived to be the most promising (around 28%), while most non-expert researchers (around 22% of non-experts) found the integrated information theory (IIT) most promising. We believe the survey results provide an interesting picture of current opinions from scientists and researchers about the progresses made and the challenges faced by consciousness research as an independent field. They will inspire collective reflection on the future directions regarding funding and job opportunities for the field. more...
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- 2018
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12. Changing our minds about changes of mind
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Stephen M. Fleming
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decision making ,motor control ,computational neuroscience ,metacognition ,error detection ,EEG ,Medicine ,Science ,Biology (General) ,QH301-705.5 - Abstract
Two theories that attempt to explain why we sometimes reverse a decision shortly after making it may both be correct.
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- 2016
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13. Consciousness in Artificial Intelligence: Insights from the Science of Consciousness.
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Patrick Butlin, Robert Long, Eric Elmoznino, Yoshua Bengio, Jonathan Birch, Axel Constant, George Deane, Stephen M. Fleming, Chris Frith, Xu Ji, Ryota Kanai, Colin Klein, Grace Lindsay, Matthias Michel, Liad Mudrik, Megan A. K. Peters, Eric Schwitzgebel, Jonathan Simon, and Rufin VanRullen more...
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- 2023
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14. Dimensions of Moral Status.
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Matan Mazor, Arianna Risoli, Anna Eberhardt, and Stephen M. Fleming
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- 2021
15. Confidence in control: Metacognitive computations for information search.
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Lion Schulz, Stephen M. Fleming, and Peter Dayan
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- 2021
16. Human Metacognition Across Domains: Insights from Individual Differences and Neuroimaging
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Marion Rouault, Andrew McWilliams, Micah G. Allen, and Stephen M. Fleming
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systematic review ,metacognition ,judgment and decision-making ,cognitive neuroscience ,cognitive abilities ,Neurosciences. Biological psychiatry. Neuropsychiatry ,RC321-571 - Abstract
Metacognition is the capacity to evaluate and control one’s own cognitive processes. Metacognition operates over a range of cognitive domains, such as perception and memory, but the neurocognitive architecture supporting this ability remains controversial. Is metacognition enabled by a common, domain-general resource that is recruited to evaluate performance on a variety of tasks? Or is metacognition reliant on domain-specific modules? This article reviews recent literature on the domain-generality of human metacognition, drawing on evidence from individual differences and neuroimaging. A meta-analysis of behavioral studies found that perceptual metacognitive ability was correlated across different sensory modalities, but found no correlation between metacognition of perception and memory. However, evidence for domain-generality from behavioral data may suffer from a lack of power to identify correlations across model parameters indexing metacognitive efficiency. Neuroimaging data provide a complementary perspective on the domain-generality of metacognition, revealing co-existence of neural signatures that are common and distinct across tasks. We suggest that such an architecture may be appropriate for “tagging” generic feelings of confidence with domain-specific information, in turn forming the basis for priors about self-ability and modulation of higher-order behavioral control. more...
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17. Explaining distortions in metacognition with an attractor network model of decision uncertainty.
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Nadim A. A. Atiya, Quentin J. M. Huys, Raymond J. Dolan, and Stephen M. Fleming
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- 2021
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18. Metacognitive computations for information search: Confidence in control
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Peter Dayan, Lion Schulz, and Stephen M. Fleming
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Action (philosophy) ,Computer science ,Information seeking ,Metacognitive Monitoring ,Computation ,Control (management) ,Metacognition ,General Psychology ,Cognitive psychology - Abstract
The metacognitive sense of confidence can play a critical role in regulating decision making. In particular, a lack of confidence can justify the explicit, potentially costly, instrumental acquisition of extra information that might resolve uncertainty. Human confidence is highly complex, and recent computational work has suggested a statistically sophisticated tapestry behind the information that governs both the making and monitoring of choices. However, the consequences of the form of such confidence computations for search have yet to be understood. Here, we reveal extra richness in the use of confidence for information seeking by formulating joint models of action, confidence, and information search within a Bayesian and reinforcement learning framework. Through detailed theoretical analysis of these models, we show the intricate normative downstream consequences for search arising from more complex forms of metacognition. For example, our results highlight how the ability to monitor errors or general metacognitive sensitivity impact seeking decisions and can generate diverse relationships between action, confidence, and the optimal search for information. We also explore whether empirical search behavior enjoys any of the characteristics of normatively derived prescriptions. More broadly, our work demonstrates that it is crucial to treat metacognitive monitoring and control as closely linked processes. more...
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- 2023
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19. The actor’s insight: Actors have comparable interoception but better metacognition than nonactors
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Peter Sokol-Hessner, Mark Wing-Davey, Scott Illingworth, Stephen M. Fleming, and Elizabeth A. Phelps
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Heart Rate ,Emotions ,Humans ,Anxiety ,Awareness ,Metacognition ,General Psychology ,Interoception - Abstract
Both accurately sensing our own bodily signals and knowing whether we have accurately sensed them may contribute to a successful emotional life, but there is little evidence on whether these physiological perceptual and metacognitive abilities systematically differ between people. Here, we examined whether actors, who receive substantial training in the production, awareness, and control of emotion, and nonactor controls differed in interoceptive ability (the perception of internal bodily signals) and/or metacognition about interoceptive accuracy (awareness of that perception), and explored potential sources of individual differences in and consequences of these abilities including correlational relationships with state and trait anxiety, proxies for acting ability, and the amount of acting training. Participants performed a heartbeat detection task in which they judged whether tones were played synchronously or delayed relative to their heartbeats, and then rated their metacognitive confidence in that judgment. Cardiac interoceptive accuracy and metacognitive awareness of interoceptive accuracy were independent, and while actors' and controls' interoceptive accuracy was not significantly different, actors had consistently superior metacognitive awareness of interoception. Exploratory analyses additionally suggest that this metacognitive ability may be correlated with measures of acting ability, but not the duration of acting training. Interoceptive accuracy and metacognitive insight into that accuracy appear to be separate abilities, and while actors may be no more accurate in reading their bodies, their metacognitive insight means they know better when they're accurate and when they're not. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved). more...
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- 2022
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20. Why and When Beliefs Change
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Tali Sharot, Max Rollwage, Cass R. Sunstein, and Stephen M. Fleming
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General Psychology - Abstract
Why people do or do not change their beliefs has been a long-standing puzzle. Sometimes people hold onto false beliefs despite ample contradictory evidence; sometimes they change their beliefs without sufficient reason. Here, we propose that the utility of a belief is derived from the potential outcomes associated with holding it. Outcomes can be internal (e.g., positive/negative feelings) or external (e.g., material gain/loss), and only some are dependent on belief accuracy. Belief change can then be understood as an economic transaction in which the multidimensional utility of the old belief is compared against that of the new belief. Change will occur when potential outcomes alter across attributes, for example because of changing environments or when certain outcomes are made more or less salient. more...
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- 2022
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21. Paradoxical evidence weighting in confidence judgments for detection and discrimination
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Matan Mazor, Lucie Charles, Roni Or Maimon-Mor, and Stephen M Fleming
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When making discrimination decisions between two stimulus categories, subjective confidence judgments are more positively affected by evidence in support of a decision than negatively affected by evidence against it. Recent theoretical proposals suggest that this “positive evidence bias” may be due to observers adopting a detection-like strategy when rating their confidence, one that has functional benefits for metacognition in real-world settings where detectability and discriminability often go hand in hand. However, it is unknown whether, or how, this evidence weighting asymmetry affects detection decisions about the presence or absence of a stimulus. In four experiments we first successfully replicate a positive evidence bias in discrimination confidence. We then show that detection decisions and confidence ratings paradoxically suffer from an opposite “negative evidence bias” to negatively weigh evidence even when it is optimal to assign it a positive weight. We show that the two effects are uncorrelated, and discuss our findings in relation to models that account for a positive evidence bias as emerging from a confidence-specific heuristic, and alternative models where decision and confidence are generated by the same, Bayes-rational process. more...
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- 2023
22. How underconfidence is maintained in anxiety and depression
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Sucharit Katyal, Quentin JM Huys, Raymond J Dolan, and Stephen M Fleming
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Individuals with anxiety and depression (AD) exhibit chronic metacognitive biases such as underconfidence. The origin of such biases is unknown. Here we quantified the impact of feedback valence on confidence in two large general population samples (N=230 and N=278). We studied metacognition both locally, as confidence in individual task instances, and globally, as self-performance estimates. Global confidence was sensitive to both local confidence and feedback valence – more frequent positive (negative) feedback increased (respectively decreased) global confidence. Feedback valence impacted confidence in a domain-general fashion and also led to shifts in affective self-beliefs. Notably, global confidence was more sensitive to low (vs. high) local confidence in individuals with greater transdiagnostic anxious-depression symptomatology, despite sensitivity to feedback valence remaining intact. Together, our results reveal a mechanistic basis for chronic underconfidence in AD rooted in distorted interactions between local and global metacognition, while also highlighting potential for restoring confidence through targeted feedback. more...
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- 2023
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23. Interoceptive and metacognitive facets of fatigue in multiple sclerosis
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Marion Rouault, Inês Pereira, Herman Galioulline, Stephen M. Fleming, Klaas Enno Stephan, and Zina-Mary Manjaly
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allostatic self-efficacy ,computational psychiatry ,confidence ,fatigue ,interoception ,metacognition ,multiple sclerosis ,perceptual decision-making ,General Neuroscience - Abstract
Numerous disorders are characterised by fatigue as a highly disabling symptom. Fatigue plays a particularly important clinical role in multiple sclerosis (MS) where it exerts a profound impact on quality of life. Recent concepts of fatigue grounded in computational theories of brain-body interactions emphasise the role of interoception and metacognition in the pathogenesis of fatigue. So far, however, for MS, empirical data on interoception and metacognition are scarce. This study examined interoception and (exteroceptive) metacognition in a sample of 71 persons with a diagnosis of MS. Interoception was assessed by prespecified subscales of a standard questionnaire (Multidimensional Assessment of Interoceptive Awareness [MAIA]), while metacognition was investigated with computational models of choice and confidence data from a visual discrimination paradigm. Additionally, autonomic function was examined by several physiological measurements. Several hypotheses were tested based on a preregistered analysis plan. In brief, we found the predicted association of interoceptive awareness with fatigue (but not with exteroceptive metacognition) and an association of autonomic function with exteroceptive metacognition (but not with fatigue). Furthermore, machine learning (elastic net regression) showed that individual fatigue scores could be predicted out-of-sample from our measurements, with questionnaire-based measures of interoceptive awareness and sleep quality as key predictors. Our results support theoretical concepts of interoception as an important factor for fatigue and demonstrate the general feasibility of predicting individual levels of fatigue from simple questionnaire-based measures of interoception and sleep., European Journal of Neuroscience, ISSN:0953-816X, ISSN:1460-9568 more...
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- 2023
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24. Different components of cognitive-behavioural therapy affect specific cognitive mechanisms
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Agnes Norbury, Tobias U. Hauser, Stephen M Fleming, Raymond J Dolan, and Quentin JM Huys
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Psychological therapies are among the most effective treatments for a range of common mental health problems – however, we still know relatively little about how exactly they improve symptoms. Here, we demonstrate the power of combing theory with computational methods to parse effects of different components of cognitive-behavioural therapies on to underlying mechanisms. Specifically, we present data from a series of randomized-controlled experiments testing the effects of components of behavioural and cognitive therapies on different cognitive processes, using well-validated behavioural measures and associated computational models (total N=807). We found that a goal-setting intervention, based on behavioural activation therapy, reliably and selectively reduced sensitivity to effort when deciding how to act to gain reward. By contrast, we found that a cognitive restructuring intervention, based on cognitive therapy, reliably and selectively reduced the tendency to attribute negative everyday events to self-related causes. Importantly, the effects of each intervention were specific to these respective measures. Our approach provides a basis for understanding how different elements of common psychotherapy programs work, which may enable theoretically-informed treatment targeting in the future. more...
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- 2023
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25. The mnemonic basis of subjective experience
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Hakwan Lau, Matthias Michel, Joseph E. LeDoux, and Stephen M. Fleming
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- 2022
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26. Dissociating the Neural Correlates of Subjective Visibility from Those of Decision Confidence
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Nadine Dijkstra, Stephen M. Fleming, and Matan Mazor
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Male ,Neural correlates of consciousness ,Consciousness ,media_common.quotation_subject ,General Neuroscience ,Visibility (geometry) ,Context (language use) ,Stimulus (physiology) ,Decision confidence ,Magnetic Resonance Imaging ,Judgment ,Visual cortex ,medicine.anatomical_structure ,Visual Perception ,medicine ,Humans ,Female ,Psychology ,Prefrontal cortex ,Photic Stimulation ,Research Articles ,Visual Cortex ,Cognitive psychology ,media_common - Abstract
A key goal of consciousness science is identifying neural signatures of being aware vs. unaware of simple stimuli. This is often investigated in the context of near-threshold detection, with reports of stimulus awareness being linked to heightened activation in a frontoparietal network. However, due to reports of stimulus presence typically being associated with higher confidence than reports of stimulus absence, these results could be explained by frontoparietal regions encoding stimulus visibility, decision confidence or both. In an exploratory analysis, we leverage fMRI data from 35 human participants (20 females) to disentangle these possibilities. We first show that, whereas stimulus identity was best decoded from the visual cortex, stimulus visibility (presence vs. absence) was best decoded from prefrontal regions. To control for effects of confidence, we then selectively sampled trials prior to decoding to equalize confidence distributions between absence and presence responses. This analysis revealed striking differences in the neural correlates of subjective visibility in prefrontal cortex regions of interest, depending on whether or not differences in confidence were controlled for. We interpret our findings as highlighting the importance of controlling for metacognitive aspects of the decision process in the search for neural correlates of visual awareness.Significance statementWhile much has been learned over the past two decades about the neural basis of visual awareness, the role of the prefrontal cortex remains a topic of debate. By applying decoding analyses to functional brain imaging data, we show that prefrontal representations of subjective visibility are contaminated by neural correlates of decision confidence. We propose a new analysis method to control for these metacognitive aspects of awareness reports, and use it to reveal confidence-independent correlates of perceptual judgments in a subset of prefrontal areas. more...
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- 2022
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27. Age-related decreases in global metacognition are independent of local metacognition and task performanc
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Andrew McWilliams, Hannah Bibby, Nikolaus Steinbeis, Anthony S. David, and Stephen M. Fleming
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Linguistics and Language ,Cognitive Neuroscience ,Developmental and Educational Psychology ,Experimental and Cognitive Psychology ,Language and Linguistics - Abstract
Metacognition refers to a capacity to reflect on and control other cognitive processes, commonly quantified as the extent to which confidence tracks objective performance. There is conflicting evidence about how metacognition changes across the lifespan and it is unknown whether “local” metacognition (monitoring of individual judgments) and “global” metacognition (estimates of self-ability) change. Additionally, the degree to which metacognition generalises across cognitive domains may itself change over time due to increased experience with one’s own abilities. Using a gamified metacognitive task we measured local and global metacognition during performance-controlled memory and visual perception tasks in an age-stratified sample of 304 healthy volunteers (18-83 years; N=50 in each of 6 age groups). We calculated both local and global metrics of metacognition and charted domain-generality with age. Task performance was stable with age. Global self-performance estimates and local metacognitive bias decreased with age, indicating overall lower confidence. Local metacognitive efficiency was unrelated to age and remained correlated across the two cognitive domains. A stability of local metacognition indicates distinct mechanisms contributing to local and global metacognition. Our study provides both a profile of local and global metacognition across the lifespan and a benchmark against which disease-related changes in metacognition can be compared. more...
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- 2023
28. A hierarchical structure for perceptual awareness in the human brain
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Nadine Dijkstra, Oliver Warrington, Peter Kok, and Stephen M Fleming
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Accounting for why sensitivity to perceptual input (as assayed by discrimination judgments) is not always accompanied by conscious awareness (as assayed by detection judgments) remains a challenge for theories of perception. Here we test a hypothesis that awareness is supported by higher-order inferences within generative models of perceptual content. We develop a novel visual perception paradigm that probes such inferences by orthogonally manipulating expectations about stimulus content (discrimination) and awareness of content (detection). In line with model simulations we show that both detection and discrimination expectations influence reaction times on a categorisation task. By combining a no-report version of our task with functional neuroimaging we reveal a neural dissociation between prediction errors (PEs) on content (discrimination) and awareness of content (detection): content PEs are tracked in posterior sensory cortex while awareness PEs are tracked in prefrontal cortex. Together, our results reveal a hierarchical structure supporting visual detection and discrimination, consistent with a proposal that awareness reflects a higher-order inference within perceptual generative models. more...
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- 2023
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29. Construct validity in metacognition research: balancing the tightrope between rigor of measurement and breadth of construct
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Sucharit Katyal and Stephen M Fleming
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Foundational work in the psychology of metacognition identified a distinction between metacognitive knowledge (stable beliefs about one’s capacities) and metacognitive experiences (local evaluations of performance). More recently, the field has focused on the latter half of the construct in the form of confidence estimates, developing tasks and metrics that seek to identify metacognitive capacities from momentary estimates of confidence in performance, and providing precise computational accounts of metacognitive failure. However, progress in formalising models of metacognitive judgments may have come at a cost of ignoring broader elements of the psychology of metacognition – such as how stable meta-knowledge is formed, how social cognition and metacognition interact, and how we evaluate affective states that do not have an obvious ground truth. We propose that construct breadth in metacognition research can be restored while maintaining rigour in measurement (for example, through computational modelling) and highlight promising avenues for extending both temporality and scope in the study of metacognition. Such a research programme is well placed to recapture qualitative features of metacognitive knowledge and experience that were part of the original construct, while maintaining the psychophysical rigor that characterises modern research on confidence and performance monitoring. more...
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- 2023
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30. A Bayesian inference model for metamemory
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Liang Luo, Stephen M. Fleming, Jun Zheng, Yue Yin, Chunliang Yang, Ningxin Su, Tian Fan, and Xiao Hu
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Computational model ,Frequentist probability ,Recall ,business.industry ,Process (engineering) ,Computer science ,Metacognition ,Bayes Theorem ,Machine learning ,computer.software_genre ,Bayesian inference ,Article ,GeneralLiterature_MISCELLANEOUS ,Judgment ,Bayes' theorem ,Memory ,Mental Recall ,Metamemory ,Humans ,Learning ,Artificial intelligence ,business ,computer ,General Psychology - Abstract
The dual-basis theory of metamemory suggests that people evaluate their memory performance based on both processing experience during the memory process and their prior beliefs about overall memory ability. However, few studies have proposed a formal computational model to quantitatively characterize how processing experience and prior beliefs are integrated during metamemory monitoring. Here, we introduce a Bayesian inference model for metamemory (BIM) which provides a theoretical and computational framework for the metamemory monitoring process. BIM assumes that when people evaluate their memory performance, they integrate processing experience and prior beliefs via Bayesian inference. We show that BIM can be fitted to recall or recognition tasks with confidence ratings on either a continuous or discrete scale. Results from data simulation indicate that BIM can successfully recover a majority of generative parameter values, and demonstrate a systematic relationship between parameters in BIM and previous computational models of metacognition such as the stochastic detection and retrieval model (SDRM) and the meta-d' model. We also show examples of fitting BIM to empirical data sets from several experiments, which suggest that the predictions of BIM are consistent with previous studies on metamemory. In addition, when compared with SDRM, BIM could more parsimoniously account for the data of judgments of learning (JOLs) and memory performance from recall tasks. Finally, we discuss an extension of BIM which accounts for belief updating, and conclude with a discussion of how BIM may benefit metamemory research. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved). more...
- Published
- 2021
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31. Predictions and rewards affect decision making but not subjective experience
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Nicolás Sánchez-Fuenzalida, Simon van Gaal, Stephen M. Fleming, Julia M. Haaf, and Johannes Jacobus Fahrenfort
- Abstract
To survive, organisms constantly make decisions to avoid danger and maximize rewards in information-rich environments. As a result, decisions about sensory input are not only driven by sensory information, but also by other factors, such as the expected rewards of a decision (known as the payoff matrix) or by information about temporal regularities in the environment (known as cognitive priors or predictions). However, it is unknown to what extent these different types of information affect subjective experience, or whether they merely result in non-perceptual response criterion shifts. To investigate this question, we used three carefully matched manipulations that typically result in behavioral shifts in decision criteria: a visual illusion (Müller-Lyer condition), a punishment scheme (payoff condition), and a change in the ratio of relevant stimuli (base rate condition). To gauge shifts in subjective experience, we introduce a novel task in which participants not only make decisions about what they have just seen, but are also asked to reproduce their experience of a target stimulus. Using Bayesian ordinal modeling, we show that each of these three manipulations affects decision criterion as intended, but that the visual illusion uniquely affects sensory experience as measured by reproduction. In a series of follow-up experiments, we use computational modeling to show that although the visual illusion result in a distinct drift-diffusion (DDM) parameter profile relative to non-sensory manipulations, reliance on DDM parameter estimates alone is not sufficient to ascertain whether a given manipulation is perceptual or non-perceptual. more...
- Published
- 2022
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32. Identifying content-invariant neural signatures of perceptual visibility
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Benjamin O. Barnett, Lau M. Andersen, Stephen M. Fleming, and Nadine Dijkstra
- Abstract
Some conscious experiences are more vivid than others. Although perceptual visibility is a familiar component of human consciousness, how variation in visibility is registered by the human brain is unknown. In particular, it is unknown whether the vividness of experience is encoded in a “rich” manner, via the strengthening or broadcast of content-specific perceptual representations, or a “sparse” manner, in which content-invariant signals track the reliability or precision of perceptual contents. Here we reanalysed existing MEG and fMRI data from two distinct studies, operationalising perceptual visibility as subjective ratings of awareness and visibility. Using representational similarity and decoding analyses, we find evidence supporting a proposal that perceptual visibility is associated with content-invariant neural signatures distributed across visual, parietal, and frontal cortices. Our findings are consistent with content-invariant neural substrates supporting the strength of perceptual experience and offer a novel methodology for examining the neural correlates of perceptual awareness.Significance StatementThe vividness of experience varies across different stimuli and contexts. Despite being a fundamental feature of human conscious awareness, it remains debated as to how perceptual vividness is encoded in the brain. Here we investigate whether the neural correlates of perceptual visibility are specific to the content of an experience and/or whether they generalize over different stimuli. By reanalysing data from two different neuroimaging studies, we describe evidence in support of a content-invariant neural code for perceptual visibility. We find temporally dynamic content-invariant neural signatures of visibility localised to visual, parietal, and frontal cortices. Our approach to dissociating content-specific and content-invariant neural signatures of awareness offers a new framework within which to distinguish between rich vs. sparse models of consciousness. more...
- Published
- 2022
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33. Suboptimal Criterion Learning in Static and Dynamic Environments.
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Elyse H. Norton, Stephen M. Fleming, Nathaniel D. Daw, and Michael S. Landy
- Published
- 2017
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34. Confidence in Risky Value-based choice
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Kevin da Silva Castanheira, Stephen M. Fleming, and A. Ross Otto
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media_common.quotation_subject ,05 social sciences ,Experimental and Cognitive Psychology ,Context (language use) ,Certainty ,Decision confidence ,050105 experimental psychology ,03 medical and health sciences ,0302 clinical medicine ,Arts and Humanities (miscellaneous) ,Perception ,Developmental and Educational Psychology ,0501 psychology and cognitive sciences ,Psychology ,Value (mathematics) ,Social psychology ,030217 neurology & neurosurgery ,media_common - Abstract
Risk engenders a phenomenologically distinct experience from certainty, often driving people to behave in ostensibly irrational ways, and with potential consequences for our subjective sense of confidence in having made the best choice. While previous work on decision confidence has largely focused on ambiguous perceptual decisions or value-based choices under certainty, it is unclear how subjective confidence reports are formed during risky value-based choice (i.e. those with uncertain outcomes). Accordingly, we sought to examine the effect of risky (versus certain) choice upon confidence ratings in a calibrated economic choice task and explore the well-documented interrelationships between confidence and subjective value (SV) as well as choice response time (RT) in the context of value-based choice. By jointly analyzing choices (risky versus certain), SV of the chosen option, confidence, and RT, we found a systematic effect of risk on subjective confidence: subjective confidence reports were significantly higher when selecting a certain prospect compared with a risky one. Interestingly, risk attenuated the strength of the relationships between confidence and both RTs and difference in subjective value (ΔSV), as well as the relationship between RT and ΔSV. Taken together, these results corroborate how choice, RT, confidence and SV relate in value-based choice under risk, informing both theories of confidence and risk preferences. more...
- Published
- 2022
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35. Response to: Metacognition in functional cognitive disorder: contradictory or convergent experimental results?
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Rohan Bhome, Andrew McWilliams, Gary Price, Norman A. Poole, Robert J. Howard, Stephen M. Fleming, and Jonathan D. Huntley
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General Engineering - Published
- 2022
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36. Effects of Emotional Preferences on Value-based Decision-making Are Mediated by Mentalizing and Reward Networks.
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Simon Evans, Stephen M. Fleming, Raymond J. Dolan, and Bruno B. Averbeck
- Published
- 2011
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37. Dogmatism manifests in lowered information search under uncertainty
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Max Rollwage, Stephen M. Fleming, Raymond J. Dolan, and Lion Schulz
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computational modeling ,education.field_of_study ,Multidisciplinary ,Information seeking ,media_common.quotation_subject ,Population ,Political Sciences ,Metacognition ,Social Sciences ,Cognition ,Biological Sciences ,Politics ,Perceptual decision ,Perception ,Phenomenon ,Psychological and Cognitive Sciences ,dogmatism ,information search ,politics ,education ,Psychology ,metacognition ,Cognitive psychology ,media_common - Abstract
Significance Dogmatic individuals are reluctant to seek out new information to refine their views, often skewing political, scientific, and religious discourse in the process. The cognitive drivers of this reluctance are poorly understood. Here, we isolate an influence of uncertainty on information search using a low-level perceptual decision-making task. We show that people with dogmatic views are both less likely to seek information before committing to a decision and to use fluctuations in uncertainty to guide their search. Our results highlight a cognitive mechanism that may contribute to the formation of dogmatic worldviews., When knowledge is scarce, it is adaptive to seek further information to resolve uncertainty and obtain a more accurate worldview. Biases in such information-seeking behavior can contribute to the maintenance of inaccurate views. Here, we investigate whether predispositions for uncertainty-guided information seeking relate to individual differences in dogmatism, a phenomenon linked to entrenched beliefs in political, scientific, and religious discourse. We addressed this question in a perceptual decision-making task, allowing us to rule out motivational factors and isolate the role of uncertainty. In two independent general population samples (n = 370 and n = 364), we show that more dogmatic participants are less likely to seek out new information to refine an initial perceptual decision, leading to a reduction in overall belief accuracy despite similar initial decision performance. Trial-by-trial modeling revealed that dogmatic participants placed less reliance on internal signals of uncertainty (confidence) to guide information search, rendering them less likely to seek additional information to update beliefs derived from weak or uncertain initial evidence. Together, our results highlight a cognitive mechanism that may contribute to the formation of dogmatic worldviews. more...
- Published
- 2020
38. Confidence drives a neural confirmation bias
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Stephen M. Fleming, Max Rollwage, Alisa M. Loosen, Rani Moran, Raymond J. Dolan, and Tobias U. Hauser
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Adult ,Male ,0301 basic medicine ,Science ,media_common.quotation_subject ,Decision ,Decision Making ,Models, Neurological ,Self-concept ,General Physics and Astronomy ,Fidelity ,Metacognition ,Models, Psychological ,Choice Behavior ,Article ,General Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology ,Young Adult ,03 medical and health sciences ,0302 clinical medicine ,Bias ,Statistics ,Human behaviour ,medicine ,Humans ,lcsh:Science ,media_common ,Multidisciplinary ,medicine.diagnostic_test ,Brain ,Magnetoencephalography ,General Chemistry ,Self Concept ,Cognitive bias ,030104 developmental biology ,Confirmation bias ,Neural processing ,Female ,lcsh:Q ,Psychology ,030217 neurology & neurosurgery ,Cognitive psychology - Abstract
A prominent source of polarised and entrenched beliefs is confirmation bias, where evidence against one’s position is selectively disregarded. This effect is most starkly evident when opposing parties are highly confident in their decisions. Here we combine human magnetoencephalography (MEG) with behavioural and neural modelling to identify alterations in post-decisional processing that contribute to the phenomenon of confirmation bias. We show that holding high confidence in a decision leads to a striking modulation of post-decision neural processing, such that integration of confirmatory evidence is amplified while disconfirmatory evidence processing is abolished. We conclude that confidence shapes a selective neural gating for choice-consistent information, reducing the likelihood of changes of mind on the basis of new information. A central role for confidence in shaping the fidelity of evidence accumulation indicates that metacognitive interventions may help ameliorate this pervasive cognitive bias., People often ignore evidence that disconfirms their prior beliefs. Here, the authors investigate the underlying cognitive, computational and neuronal mechanisms of such confirmation bias, and show that high confidence induces a selective neural processing of choice-consistent information. more...
- Published
- 2020
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39. Metacognition in functional cognitive disorder
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Rohan Bhome, Andrew McWilliams, Gary Price, Norman A. Poole, Robert J. Howard, Stephen M. Fleming, and Jonathan D. Huntley
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General Engineering - Abstract
Functional cognitive disorder is common but underlying mechanisms remain poorly understood. Metacognition, an individual’s ability to reflect on and monitor cognitive processes, is likely to be relevant. Local metacognition refers to an ability to estimate confidence in cognitive performance on a moment-to-moment basis, whereas global metacognition refers to long-run self-evaluations of overall performance. Using a novel protocol comprising task-based measures and hierarchical Bayesian modelling, we compared local and global metacognitive performance in individuals with functional cognitive disorder. Eighteen participants with functional cognitive disorder (mean age = 49.2 years, 10 males) were recruited to this cross-sectional study. Participants completed computerized tasks that enabled local metacognitive efficiency for perception and memory to be measured using the hierarchical meta-d’ model within a signal detection theory framework. Participants also completed the Multifactorial Memory Questionnaire measuring global metacognition, and questionnaires measuring anxiety and depression. Estimates of local metacognitive efficiency were compared with those estimated from two control groups who had undergone comparable metacognitive tasks. Global metacognition scores were compared with the existing normative data. A hierarchical regression model was used to evaluate associations between global metacognition, depression and anxiety and local metacognitive efficiency, whilst simple linear regressions were used to evaluate whether affective symptomatology and local metacognitive confidence were associated with global metacognition. Participants with functional cognitive disorder had intact local metacognition for perception and memory when compared with controls, with the 95% highest density intervals for metacognitive efficiency overlapping with the two control groups in both cognitive domains. Functional cognitive disorder participants had significantly lower global metacognition scores compared with normative data; Multifactorial Memory Questionnaire-Ability subscale (t = 6.54, P more...
- Published
- 2022
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40. Reply to: Metacognition, adaptation, and mental health
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Tricia X.F. Seow, Marion Rouault, Claire M. Gillan, and Stephen M. Fleming
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Mental Health ,Mental Disorders ,Humans ,Metacognition ,Adaptation, Physiological ,Biological Psychiatry - Published
- 2022
41. Mortality awareness: New directions
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Margot Kuylen, Shihui Han, Lasana Harris, Quentin Huys, Susana Monsó, Alexandra Pitman, Stephen M. Fleming, and Anthony S. David
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Health (social science) ,Life-span and Life-course Studies ,Critical Care and Intensive Care Medicine - Abstract
Thinking about our own death and its salience in relation to decision making has become a fruitful area of multidisciplinary research across the breadth of psychological science. By bringing together experts from philosophy, cognitive and affective neuroscience, clinical and computational psychiatry we have attempted to set out the current state of the art and point to areas of further enquiry. One stimulus for doing this is the need to engage with policy makers who are now having to consider guidelines on suicide and assisted suicide so that they may be aware of their own as well as the wider populations’ cognitive processes when confronted with the ultimate truth of mortality. more...
- Published
- 2022
42. Imagery adds stimulus-specific sensory evidence to perceptual detection
- Author
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Nadine Dijkstra, Peter Kok, and Stephen M Fleming
- Subjects
Ophthalmology ,Imagination ,Psychophysics ,Sensation ,Visual Perception ,Brain ,Humans ,Sensory Systems - Abstract
Internally generated imagery and externally triggered perception rely on overlapping sensory processes. This overlap poses a challenge for perceptual reality monitoring: determining whether sensory signals reflect reality or imagination. In this study, we used psychophysics to investigate how imagery and perception interact to determine visual experience. Participants were instructed to detect oriented gratings that gradually appeared in noise while simultaneously either imagining the same grating, a grating perpendicular to the to-be-detected grating, or nothing. We found that, compared to both incongruent imagery and no imagery, congruent imagery caused a leftward shift of the psychometric function relating stimulus contrast to perceptual threshold. We discuss how this effect can best be explained by a model in which imagery adds sensory signal to the perceptual input, thereby increasing the visibility of perceived stimuli. These results suggest that, in contrast to changes in sensory signals caused by self-generated movement, the brain does not discount the influence of self-generated sensory signals on perception. more...
- Published
- 2022
43. Efficient search termination without task experience
- Author
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Matan Mazor and Stephen M. Fleming
- Subjects
Physics ,Zero (complex analysis) ,Metacognition ,Experimental and Cognitive Psychology ,Recognition, Psychology ,Dissociation (chemistry) ,Developmental Neuroscience ,Pattern Recognition, Visual ,Shot (pellet) ,Reaction Time ,Heuristics ,Humans ,Statistical physics ,General Psychology ,Problem Solving - Abstract
As a general rule, if it is easy to detect a target in a visual scene, it is also easy to detect its absence. To account for this, models of visual search explain search termination as resulting either from counterfactual reasoning over second-order representations of search efficiency, automatic extraction of ensemble statistics of a display, or heuristic adjustment of a search termination strategy based on previous trials. Traditional few-subjects/many-trials lab-based experiments render it impossible to disentangle the unique contribution of these different processes to absence pop-out - the immediate recognition that a feature is missing from a display. In 2 preregistered large-scale online experiments (N1 = 1187; N2 = 887) we show that search termination times are already aligned with target identification times in the very first trials of the experiment before any experience with target presence. Exploratory analysis reveals that explicit metacognitive knowledge about search efficiency is not necessary for efficient search termination. We conclude that for basic stimulus properties, efficient inference about absence is independent of task experience and of explicit metacognitive knowledge about visual search. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved). more...
- Published
- 2022
44. The cognition/metacognition trade-off
- Author
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David Rosenbaum, Moshe Glickman, Stephen M. Fleming, and Marius Usher
- Subjects
Judgment ,Cognition ,Decision Making ,Humans ,Computer Simulation ,Metacognition ,General Psychology - Abstract
Integration to boundary is an optimal decision algorithm that accumulates evidence until the posterior reaches a decision boundary, resulting in the fastest decisions for a target accuracy. Here, we demonstrated that this advantage incurs a cost in metacognitive accuracy (confidence), generating a cognition/metacognition trade-off. Using computational modeling, we found that integration to a fixed boundary results in less variability in evidence integration and thus reduces metacognitive accuracy, compared with a collapsing-boundary or a random-timer strategy. We examined how decision strategy affects metacognitive accuracy in three cross-domain experiments, in which 102 university students completed a free-response session (evidence terminated by the participant’s response) and an interrogation session (fixed number of evidence samples controlled by the experimenter). In both sessions, participants observed a sequence of evidence and reported their choice and confidence. As predicted, the interrogation protocol (preventing integration to boundary) enhanced metacognitive accuracy. We also found that in the free-response sessions, participants integrated evidence to a collapsing boundary—a strategy that achieves an efficient compromise between optimizing choice and metacognitive accuracy. more...
- Published
- 2022
45. Erratum to: Stage 1 registered report: metacognitive asymmetries in visual perception and Stage 2 registered report: metacognitive asymmetries in visual perception
- Author
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Matan Mazor, Rani Moran, and Stephen M Fleming
- Subjects
Psychiatry and Mental health ,Clinical Psychology ,Neurology ,AcademicSubjects/SCI01870 ,AcademicSubjects/SCI01880 ,AcademicSubjects/SCI02120 ,Experimental and Cognitive Psychology ,AcademicSubjects/SCI01950 ,Neurology (clinical) ,Erratum ,AcademicSubjects/SCI02139 - Abstract
People have better metacognitive sensitivity for decisions about the presence compared to the absence of objects. However, it is not only objects themselves that can be present or absent, but also parts of objects and other visual features. Asymmetries in visual search indicate that a disadvantage for representing absence may operate at these levels as well. Furthermore, a processing advantage for surprising signals suggests that a presence/absence asymmetry may be explained by absence being passively represented as a default state, and presence as a default-violating surprise. It is unknown whether the metacognitive asymmetry for judgments about presence and absence extends to these different levels of representation (object, feature, and default violation). To address this question and test for a link between the representation of absence and default reasoning more generally, here we measure metacognitive sensitivity for discrimination judgments between stimuli that are identical except for the presence or absence of a distinguishing feature, and for stimuli that differ in their compliance with an expected default state. more...
- Published
- 2021
46. Computations of confidence are modulated by mentalizing ability
- Author
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van der Plas E, Livingston La, Stephen M. Fleming, Happé F, Craigie J, and Mason D
- Subjects
Cognitive science ,Text mining ,Mentalization ,Computer science ,business.industry ,Computation ,business - Abstract
Do people have privileged and direct access to their own minds, or do we infer our own thoughts and feelings indirectly, as we would infer the mental states of others? In this study we shed light on this question by examining how mentalizing ability—the set of processes involved in understanding other people’s thoughts and feelings—relates to metacognitive efficiency—the ability to reflect on one’s own performance. In a general population sample (N = 477) we showed that mentalizing ability and self-reported socio-communicative skills are positively correlated with perceptual metacognitive efficiency, even after controlling for choice accuracy. By modelling the trial-by-trial formation of confidence we showed that mentalizing ability predicted the association between response times and confidence, suggesting those with better mentalizing ability were more sensitive to inferential cues to self-performance. In a second study we showed that both mentalizing and metacognitive efficiency were lower in autistic participants (N = 40) when compared with age, gender, IQ, and education-matched non-autistic participants. Together, our results suggest that the ability to understand other people’s minds predicts self-directed metacognition. more...
- Published
- 2021
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47. Fundamental constraints on distinguishing reality from imagination
- Author
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Nadine Dijkstra and Stephen M. Fleming
- Subjects
Imagination ,Cognitive science ,Computer science ,media_common.quotation_subject ,media_common - Abstract
Humans are voracious imaginers, with internal simulations supporting memory, planning and decision-making. Because the neural mechanisms supporting imagination overlap with those supporting perception, a foundational question is how reality and imagination are kept apart. Traditional psychology experiments struggle to investigate this issue as subjects can rapidly learn that real stimuli are in play. Here we capitalised on the ability to conduct large-scale, one-trial-per-participant psychophysics via online platforms combined with computational modelling and neuroimaging to investigate perceptual reality monitoring failures in the general population. We find striking evidence for a subjective intermixing of imagination and reality – both behaviourally and neurally. Our data are best explained by a model that evaluates the total strength of intermixed imagined and perceived signals against a “reality threshold” to determine whether it reflects reality. These findings suggest that imagined and perceived signals are not kept separate, nor is the intention to imagine used to identity and discount self-generated signals. Instead, a judgment of reality is based on the intensity of the intermixture between imagination and reality. A striking consequence of this account is that it predicts when virtual or imagined signals are strong enough, they become indistinguishable from reality. more...
- Published
- 2021
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48. Theories of consciousness are solutions in need of problems
- Author
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Stephen M. Fleming
- Subjects
Cognitive science ,Empirical data ,Social sharing ,Electromagnetic theories of consciousness ,Cognitive Neuroscience ,media_common.quotation_subject ,05 social sciences ,050105 experimental psychology ,Constraint (information theory) ,03 medical and health sciences ,0302 clinical medicine ,Conscious awareness ,Social function ,0501 psychology and cognitive sciences ,Consciousness ,Psychology ,Function (engineering) ,030217 neurology & neurosurgery ,media_common - Abstract
Doerig et al. point out a number of shortcomings with existing theories of consciousness and argue they should be systematically constrained by empirical data. In this commentary I suggest a further constraint - the potential functions of (the contents of) consciousness. One such candidate function in humans is the social sharing of reportable mental states. The social function of consciousnessprovides a general framework within which to understand the evolution and neurobiology of conscious awareness. more...
- Published
- 2020
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49. Perceptual sensitivity is modulated by what others can see
- Author
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Tricia X. F. Seow and Stephen M. Fleming
- Subjects
Male ,Linguistics and Language ,PsyArXiv|Social and Behavioral Sciences|Social and Personality Psychology|Social Cognition ,PsyArXiv|Social and Behavioral Sciences|Perception|Vision ,media_common.quotation_subject ,Decision Making ,bepress|Social and Behavioral Sciences|Psychology|Cognition and Perception ,Experimental and Cognitive Psychology ,Stimulus (physiology) ,Bayesian inference ,050105 experimental psychology ,Language and Linguistics ,Article ,03 medical and health sciences ,Judgment ,0302 clinical medicine ,Social cognition ,Perception ,Humans ,0501 psychology and cognitive sciences ,Detection theory ,Attention ,PsyArXiv|Social and Behavioral Sciences|Social and Personality Psychology ,Social Behavior ,Avatar ,media_common ,PsyArXiv|Social and Behavioral Sciences|Perception ,PsyArXiv|Social and Behavioral Sciences|Cognitive Psychology|Attention ,05 social sciences ,Social cue ,Gaze ,Sensory Systems ,Bayesian modeling ,bepress|Social and Behavioral Sciences|Psychology|Cognitive Psychology ,PsyArXiv|Social and Behavioral Sciences ,Signal detection theory ,Space Perception ,bepress|Social and Behavioral Sciences ,PsyArXiv|Social and Behavioral Sciences|Cognitive Psychology ,Visual Perception ,bepress|Social and Behavioral Sciences|Psychology|Social Psychology ,bepress|Social and Behavioral Sciences|Psychology|Personality and Social Contexts ,Female ,Cues ,Psychology ,030217 neurology & neurosurgery ,Cognitive psychology - Abstract
Previous work has established that social cues such as the direction of others’ gaze or their perspective on a scene may influence one’s own perceptual judgments. However, up until now it has remained unclear whether such influences are exerted at a perceptual or decisional locus, as most previous studies have used response times as their primary dependent measure. Here, we asked whether perceptual sensitivity is also dependent on social cognition. To test this hypothesis, we asked participants to evaluate whether low-contrast Gabor patterns embedded in noise were visible from either their own or an avatar’s perspective. Across three experiments, we found that observers’ detection performance was increased if an avatar also shared perception of the stimulus location. By leveraging signal detection modelling, we show that this effect is driven by a change in perceptual sensitivity (d′), independent of decisional or response interference. Furthermore, by “blindfolding” the avatar, we show that the boosting effect of shared perception on detection sensitivity is only obtained when the participant believes the avatar can also see the stimulus, ruling out an influence of low-level directional cues. We interpret these results within a framework in which the avatar’s perspective boosts top-down spatial attention by prioritising particular spatial locations at which perception is shared. In summary, we reveal that perceptual sensitivity is modulated by the perspective of others. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (10.3758/s13414-019-01724-5) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. more...
- Published
- 2019
50. Metacognition in Functional Cognitive Disorder
- Author
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Gary Price, Robert Howard, Andrew McWilliams, Stephen M. Fleming, Jonathan Huntley, Poole Na, and Rohan Bhome
- Subjects
media_common.quotation_subject ,Multilevel model ,Cognitive disorder ,Metacognition ,Cognition ,medicine.disease ,Mood ,Perception ,medicine ,Anxiety ,Effects of sleep deprivation on cognitive performance ,medicine.symptom ,Psychology ,Cognitive psychology ,media_common - Abstract
Functional cognitive disorder (FCD) is common but underlying mechanisms remain poorly understood. Metacognition, an individual’s ability to reflect on and monitor cognitive processes, is likely to be relevant. Local metacognition refers to an ability to estimate confidence in cognitive performance on a moment-to-moment basis, whereas global metacognition refers to long-run self-evaluations of overall performance. Using a novel protocol comprising task-based measures and hierarchical Bayesian modelling, we compared local and global metacognitive performance in individuals with FCD and evaluated interactions between these levels of metacognition. We also investigated how local and global metacognition were related to the presence of affective symptomatology.Eighteen participants with FCD were recruited to this cross-sectional study. Participants completed computerised tasks that enabled local metacognitive efficiency for perception and memory to be measured using the hierarchical meta-d’ (HMeta-d) model within a signal detection theory framework. Participants also completed the Multifactorial Memory Questionnaire (MMQ) measuring global metacognition (beliefs about memory performance), and questionnaires measuring anxiety and depression. Estimates of local metacognitive efficiency were compared to those estimated from two control groups who had undergone comparable metacognitive tasks. Global metacognition scores were compared to existing normative data. A hierarchical regression model was used to evaluate associations between global metacognition, depression and anxiety and local metacognitive efficiency, while simple linear regressions were used to evaluate whether affective symptomatology and local metacognitive confidence were associated with global metacognition.Participants with FCD had intact local metacognition for perception and memory when compared to controls, with the 95% highest-density intervals for metacognitive efficiency overlapping with the two control groups in both cognitive domains. FCD participants had significantly lower global metacognition scores compared to normative data; MMQ-Ability (t=6.54, pWe show that local metacognition is intact, whilst global metacognition is impaired, in FCD, suggesting a decoupling between the two metacognitive processes. In a Bayesian model, an aberrant prior (impaired global metacognition), may override bottom up sensory input (intact local metacognition), giving rise to the subjective experience of abnormal cognitive processing. Future work should further investigate the interplay between local and global metacognition in FCD and aim to identify a therapeutic target to recouple these processes. more...
- Published
- 2021
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
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