Department of Psychology, New York University, New York, NY, USA.
Department of Psychology, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan.
Sci Rep. 2024 Jan 23;14(1):1990. doi: 10.1038/s41598-023-49709-7.
Metacognition of emotion (meta-emotion) refers to the ability to evaluate and identify one's emotional feelings. No previous study has defined and measured this construct through objective and quantitative procedures. We established a reliable method to measure meta-emotion. With a two-interval forced-choice procedure, participants selected which of two pictures elicited stronger positive emotion; via the Law of Comparative Judgment, their responses were used to compute individual psychological distances for the emotional responses triggered by the pictures. Then, participants were asked to judge whether a pre-exposed picture induced a stronger positive emotion than the median of that elicited by the whole picture set, followed by a confidence rating. By utilizing each individual's psychological distance, the correctness of a participant's emotional experience was quantified by d', and meta-emotion was quantified using meta-d', M-ratio, and M-diff as indices of metacognitive sensitivity and efficiency based on Signal-Detection Theory. Test-retest reliabilities, validated by Spearman correlation, were observed in meta-d', M-ratio, and marginally with M-diff, suggesting the stability of meta-emotion in the current design. This study unveils a validated procedure to quantify meta-emotion, extendable for assessing metacognition of other subjective feelings. Nevertheless, caution is warranted in interpretation, as the measured processes may be influenced by non-metacognitive factors.
情绪元认知（meta-emotion）是指评估和识别自身情绪感受的能力。之前没有研究通过客观和定量的程序来定义和测量这个结构。我们建立了一种可靠的方法来测量情绪元认知。通过双区间迫选程序，参与者选择哪两张图片能引发更强的正面情绪；通过比较判断定律，根据参与者对图片引发的情绪反应的反应，计算出个体的心理距离。然后，要求参与者判断预先曝光的图片是否比整个图片集诱发的平均情绪更强，同时给出信心评分。通过利用每个人的心理距离，根据信号检测理论，使用 d'来量化参与者情绪体验的正确性，使用 meta-d'、M-ratio 和 M-diff 作为元认知敏感性和效率的指标来量化情绪元认知。通过 Spearman 相关分析，观察到 meta-d'、M-ratio 和 M-diff 的测试-重测信度，表明在当前设计中情绪元认知的稳定性。本研究揭示了一种量化情绪元认知的有效程序，可扩展用于评估其他主观感受的元认知。然而，需要谨慎解释，因为所测量的过程可能受到非元认知因素的影响。
