Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience, Philippstraße 13, Haus 6, 10115, Berlin, Germany.
Berlin School of Mind and Brain, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Berlin, Germany.
Psychon Bull Rev. 2023 Jun;30(3):1125-1135. doi: 10.3758/s13423-022-02201-1. Epub 2022 Nov 4.
It is still debated whether metacognition, or the ability to monitor our own mental states, relies on processes that are "domain-general" (a single set of processes can account for the monitoring of any mental process) or "domain-specific" (metacognition is accomplished by a collection of multiple monitoring modules, one for each cognitive domain). It has been speculated that two broad categories of metacognitive processes may exist: those that monitor primarily externally generated versus those that monitor primarily internally generated information. To test this proposed division, we measured metacognitive performance (using m-ratio, a signal detection theoretical measure) in four tasks that could be ranked along an internal-external axis of the source of information, namely memory, motor, visuomotor, and visual tasks. We found correlations between m-ratios in visuomotor and motor tasks, but no correlations between m-ratios in visual and visuomotor tasks, or between motor and memory tasks. While we found no correlation in metacognitive ability between visual and memory tasks, and a positive correlation between visuomotor and motor tasks, we found no evidence for a correlation between motor and memory tasks. This pattern of correlations does not support the grouping of domains based on whether the source of information is primarily internal or external. We suggest that other groupings could be more reflective of the nature of metacognition and discuss the need to consider other non-domain task-features when using correlations as a way to test the underlying shared processes between domains.
元认知，即监测自身心理状态的能力，究竟依赖于“领域普遍”（单一处理过程可以解释任何心理过程的监测）还是“领域特定”（元认知由多个监测模块完成，每个模块对应一个认知领域）的处理过程，这一点仍存在争议。人们推测，可能存在两种广泛的元认知过程：一种主要监测外部产生的信息，另一种主要监测内部产生的信息。为了验证这一假设的划分，我们在四个任务中测量了元认知表现（使用 m-比，一种信号检测理论的测量方法），这些任务可以根据信息来源的内部-外部轴进行排序，即记忆、运动、视动和视觉任务。我们发现，在视动和运动任务之间的 m-比值之间存在相关性，但在视觉和视动任务之间，或在运动和记忆任务之间，m-比值之间没有相关性。虽然我们在视觉和记忆任务之间的元认知能力上没有发现相关性，在视动和运动任务之间发现了正相关，但我们没有发现运动和记忆任务之间存在相关性的证据。这种相关性模式不支持基于信息来源主要是内部还是外部来对领域进行分组。我们建议，其他分组方式可能更能反映元认知的本质，并讨论了在使用相关性作为测试领域之间潜在共享过程的方法时，需要考虑其他非领域任务特征的必要性。
