Laboratoire de Psychologie et NeuroCognition, Université Grenoble Alpes and Université Savoie Mont Blanc, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, 38000 Grenoble, France.
Laboratory for Neurology and Imaging of Cognition, Department of Basic Neuroscience, University of Geneva, 1211 Geneva, Switzerland.
J Neurosci. 2023 Aug 30;43(35):6176-6184. doi: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.0133-23.2023. Epub 2023 Aug 3.
Humans can successfully correct deviations of movements without conscious detection of such deviations, suggesting limited awareness of movement details. We ask whether such limited awareness impairs confidence (metacognition). We recorded functional magnetic resonance imaging data while 31 human female and male participants detected cursor deviations during a visuomotor reaching task and rated their confidence retrospectively. We show that participants monitor a summary statistic of the unfolding visual feedback (the peak cursor error) to detect visuomotor deviations and adjust their confidence ratings, even when they report being unaware of a deviation. Crucially, confidence ratings were as metacognitively efficient for aware and unaware deviations. At the neural level, activity in the ventral striatum tracks high confidence, whereas a broad network encodes cursor error but not confidence. These findings challenge the notion of limited conscious action monitoring and uncover how humans monitor their movements as they unfold, even when unaware of ongoing deviations. We are unaware of the small corrections we apply to our movements as long as our goals are achieved. Here, although we replicate the finding that participants deny perceiving small deviations they correct, we show that their confidence reliably reflects the presence or absence of a deviation. This observation shows they can metacognitively monitor the presence of a deviation, even when they deny perceiving it. We also describe the hemodynamic correlates of confidence ratings. Our study questions the extent to which humans are unaware of the details of their movements; describes a plausible mechanism for metacognition in a visuomotor task, along with its neural correlates; and has important implications for the construction of the sense of self.
人类可以在没有对运动偏差进行有意识检测的情况下成功纠正运动偏差，这表明人类对运动细节的意识有限。我们想知道这种有限的意识是否会影响信心（元认知）。我们记录了 31 名男性和女性参与者在进行视觉运动到达任务时检测光标偏差并回顾性地对其信心进行评分的功能磁共振成像数据。我们表明，参与者监测视觉反馈的展开的摘要统计信息（光标误差的峰值）以检测视觉运动偏差并调整其信心评分，即使他们报告没有察觉到偏差。至关重要的是，对于有意识和无意识的偏差，信心评分在元认知上同样有效。在神经水平上，腹侧纹状体的活动与高信心相关，而广泛的网络则编码光标误差但不编码信心。这些发现挑战了意识行动监测有限的观点，并揭示了人类如何在展开运动时监测其运动，即使他们不知道正在发生偏差。只要我们的目标得以实现，我们就会忽略我们对运动进行的小调整。在这里，尽管我们复制了参与者否认感知到他们纠正的小偏差的发现，但我们表明他们的信心可靠地反映了偏差的存在与否。这一观察表明，他们可以在元认知上监测偏差的存在，即使他们否认感知到它。我们还描述了信心评分的血流动力学相关性。我们的研究质疑了人类对运动细节的意识程度；描述了在视觉运动任务中元认知的一种可能机制及其神经相关性；并对自我意识的构建具有重要意义。
