GIGA Cyclotron Research Center, University of Liège, Liège, Belgium.
Psychology and Neuroscience of Cognition Unit, University of Liège, Liège, Belgium.
Aging Ment Health. 2021 Jan;25(1):142-148. doi: 10.1080/13607863.2019.1675142. Epub 2019 Oct 10.
Impairments of metacognitive skills represent a critical symptom in Alzheimer Disease (AD) because it frequently results in a lack of self-awareness. However, recent findings suggest that, despite an inability to explicitly estimate their own cognitive functioning, patients might demonstrate some implicit recognition of difficulties. In this study, we tested whether a behavioral dissociation between explicit and implicit measures of metacognition can be found in both healthy older controls ( = 20) and AD patients ( = 20).
Our two groups of participants (AD vs. Controls) were asked to complete a forced-choice perceptual identification test and to explicitly rate their confidence in each decision (i.e. explicit measure of metacognition). Moreover, they also had the opportunity to ask for a cue to help them decide if their response was correct (i.e. implicit measure of metacognition).
Data revealed that all participants asked for a cue more often after an incorrect response than after a correct response in the forced-choice identification test, indicating a good ability to implicitly introspect on the results of their cognitive operations. On the contrary, only healthy participants displayed metacognitive sensitivity when making explicit confidence judgments.
Our findings suggest that implicit metacognition may be less affected than explicit metacognition in Alzheimer's disease.
元认知技能损伤是阿尔茨海默病（AD）的一个关键症状，因为它通常导致自我意识缺失。然而，最近的研究结果表明，尽管患者无法明确估计自己的认知功能，但他们可能会对困难表现出一些隐含的认识。在这项研究中，我们测试了在健康的老年对照组（n=20）和 AD 患者组（n=20）中是否可以发现元认知的内省和外显测量之间的行为分离。
我们的两组参与者（AD 组与对照组）被要求完成一项强制选择感知识别测试，并明确评估他们对每个决策的信心（即元认知的外显测量）。此外，他们还有机会要求提示来帮助他们决定自己的反应是否正确（即元认知的内隐测量）。
数据显示，所有参与者在强制选择识别测试中，错误反应后比正确反应后更频繁地要求提示，这表明他们能够很好地内省自己的认知操作结果。相反，只有健康的参与者在进行外显信心判断时表现出元认知敏感性。
我们的研究结果表明，在阿尔茨海默病中，内隐元认知可能比外显元认知受影响更小。
