Kerrén Casper, Zhao Yiming, Griffiths Benjamin J
Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Leipzig, Germany.
Centre for Human Brain Health, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK.
Commun Psychol. 2024 Jul 1;2(1):58. doi: 10.1038/s44271-024-00108-2.
When we recall a past event, we reconstruct the event based on a combination of episodic details and semantic knowledge (e.g., prototypes). Though prototypes can impair the veracity of recall, it remains unclear whether we are metacognitively aware of the distortions they introduce. To address this, we conducted six experiments in which participants learned object-colour/object-location pairs and subsequently recalled the colour/location when cued with the object. Leveraging unsupervised machine learning algorithms, we extracted participant-specific prototypes and embedded responses in two-dimensional space to quantify prototype-based distortions in individual memory traces. Our findings reveal robust and conceptually replicable evidence to suggest that prototype-based distortion is accompanied by a reduction in self-reported confidence - an implicit measure of metacognitive awareness. Critically, we find evidence to suggest that it is prototype-based distortion of a memory trace that undermines confidence, rather than a lack of confidence biasing reconstruction towards the use of prototypes. Collectively, these findings suggest that we possess metacognitive awareness of distortions embedded in our memories.
当我们回忆过去的事件时，我们会根据情景细节和语义知识（如原型）的组合来重构该事件。尽管原型会损害回忆的准确性，但我们是否在元认知层面意识到它们所引入的扭曲尚不清楚。为了解决这个问题，我们进行了六项实验，让参与者学习物体-颜色/物体-位置对，随后在以物体为线索时回忆颜色/位置。利用无监督机器学习算法，我们提取了参与者特有的原型，并将反应嵌入二维空间，以量化个体记忆痕迹中基于原型的扭曲。我们的研究结果揭示了有力且在概念上可重复的证据，表明基于原型的扭曲伴随着自我报告的信心下降——这是元认知意识的一种隐性指标。至关重要的是，我们发现有证据表明，是记忆痕迹中基于原型的扭曲破坏了信心，而不是缺乏信心使重构偏向于使用原型。总体而言，这些发现表明我们对记忆中嵌入的扭曲具有元认知意识。
