School of Psychology, University of Kent, UK.
School of Psychology, University of Kent, UK.
Conscious Cogn. 2019 Apr;70:11-24. doi: 10.1016/j.concog.2019.01.013. Epub 2019 Feb 16.
We examined performance on implicit (non-verbal) and explicit (verbal) uncertainty-monitoring tasks among neurotypical participants and participants with autism, while also testing mindreading abilities in both groups. We found that: (i) performance of autistic participants was unimpaired on the implicit uncertainty-monitoring task, while being significantly impaired on the explicit task; (ii) performance on the explicit task was correlated with performance on mindreading tasks in both groups, whereas performance on the implicit uncertainty-monitoring task was not; and (iii) performance on implicit and explicit uncertainty-monitoring tasks was not correlated. The results support the view that (a) explicit uncertainty-monitoring draws on the same cognitive faculty as mindreading whereas (b) implicit uncertainty-monitoring only test first-order decision making. These findings support the theory that metacognition and mindreading are underpinned by the same meta-representational faculty/resources, and that the implicit uncertainty-monitoring tasks that are frequently used with non-human animals fail to demonstrate the presence of metacognitive abilities.
我们考察了神经典型参与者和自闭症患者在隐性（非言语）和显性（言语）不确定性监测任务中的表现，同时也测试了两组的心理理论能力。我们发现：（i）自闭症患者在隐性不确定性监测任务中的表现未受影响，而在显性任务中则受到显著影响；（ii）显性任务的表现与两组的心理理论任务的表现相关，而隐性不确定性监测任务的表现则不相关；（iii）隐性和显性不确定性监测任务的表现不相关。这些结果支持了以下观点：（a）显性不确定性监测与心理理论一样，依赖于相同的认知能力；而（b）隐性不确定性监测仅测试一阶决策。这些发现支持了这样一种理论，即元认知和心理理论是由相同的元表示能力/资源支撑的，而那些经常用于非人类动物的隐性不确定性监测任务未能证明元认知能力的存在。
