Knowing that you know that you know? An extreme-confidence heuristic can lead to above-chance discrimination of metacognitive performance.

In daily life, we can not only estimate confidence in our inferences ('I'm sure I failed that exam'), but can also estimate whether those feelings of confidence are good predictors of decision accuracy ('I feel sure I failed, but my feeling is probably wrong; I probably passed'). In the lab, by using simple perceptual tasks and collecting trial-by-trial confidence ratings visual metacognition research has repeatedly shown that participants can successfully predict the accuracy of their perceptual choices. Can participants also successfully evaluate 'confidence in confidence' in these tasks? This is the question addressed in this study. Participants performed a simple, two-interval forced choice numerosity task framed as an exam. Confidence judgements were collected in the form of a 'predicted exam grade'. Finally, we collected 'meta-metacognitive' reports in a two-interval forced-choice design: trials were presented in pairs, and participants had to select that in which they thought their confidence (predicted grade) best matched their accuracy (actual grade), effectively minimizing their quadratic scoring rule (QSR) score. Participants successfully selected trials on which their metacognition was better when metacognitive performance was quantified using area under the type 2 ROC (AUROC2) but not when using the 'gold-standard' measure m-ratio. However, further analyses suggested that participants selected trials on which AUROC2 is lower in part via an extreme-confidence heuristic, rather than through explicit evaluation of metacognitive inferences: when restricting analyses to trials on which participants gave the same confidence rating AUROC2 no longer differed as a function of selection, and likewise when we excluded trials on which extreme confidence ratings were given. Together, our results show that participants are able to make effective metacognitive discriminations on their visual confidence ratings, but that explicit 'meta-metacognitive' processes may not be required.

Effects of perceptual redundancy, conceptual redundancy and self-relatedness on categorical responses.

A redundancy gain occurs when perceptually identical stimuli are presented together, resulting in quicker categorization of these paired stimuli than lone stimuli. Similar effects have been reported for paired stimuli within the same conceptual category, particularly if the category is self-related. We recruited 528 individuals across three related studies to investigate whether, during perceptual and conceptual redundancy, such self-bias effects on foreground stimuli are modulated by natural versus urban backgrounds. Here, we highlight our observations pertaining to perceptual and conceptual redundancy effects of the foreground stimuli. In our first experiment, response options were randomised per trial. Results showed reaction time gains for perceptually identical stimuli, but this advantage was not modulated by self/other categorization. However, slower reaction times were observed for conceptually-related stimulus pairs and were influenced by self/other categorization. The second experiment replicated the methods of earlier studies of redundancy and observed comparable results to Experiment 1: a perceptual redundancy gain unmodulated by self/other categorization, yet for conceptual redundancy, no gain/cost but effects of self/other categorization. In the third experiment, self/other categories were substituted with arbitrary A/B categories: Once more, there was a perceptual redundancy gain and no conceptual redundancy gain. Notably, A/B categorisation produced effects equivalent to self/other categorisation. Overall, these findings challenge previous research on the facilitated early processing of conceptually-related stimuli and suggest that self-relatedness may not exert a unique effect on stimulus processing beyond attentional and response preferences during categorization. Our study motivates further research to understand conceptual categorization and redundancy gain effects.

Trial-by-trial predictions of subjective time from human brain activity.

Human experience of time exhibits systematic, context-dependent deviations from clock time; for example, time is experienced differently at work than on holiday. Here we test the proposal that differences from clock time in subjective experience of time arise because time estimates are constructed by accumulating the same quantity that guides perception: salient events. Healthy human participants watched naturalistic, silent videos of up to 24 seconds in duration and estimated their duration while fMRI was acquired. We were able to reconstruct trial-by-trial biases in participants' duration reports, which reflect subjective experience of duration, purely from salient events in their visual cortex BOLD activity. By contrast, salient events in neither of two control regions-auditory and somatosensory cortex-were predictive of duration biases. These results held despite being able to (trivially) predict clock time from all three brain areas. Our results reveal that the information arising during perceptual processing of a dynamic environment provides a sufficient basis for reconstructing human subjective time duration.

Consensus Goals in the Field of Visual Metacognition.

Despite the tangible progress in psychological and cognitive sciences over the last several years, these disciplines still trail other more mature sciences in identifying the most important questions that need to be solved. Reaching such consensus could lead to greater synergy across different laboratories, faster progress, and increased focus on solving important problems rather than pursuing isolated, niche efforts. Here, 26 researchers from the field of visual metacognition reached consensus on four long-term and two medium-term common goals. We describe the process that we followed, the goals themselves, and our plans for accomplishing these goals. If this effort proves successful within the next few years, such consensus building around common goals could be adopted more widely in psychological science.

The Cardiac Timing Toolbox (CaTT): Testing for physiologically plausible effects of cardiac timing on behaviour.

There is a long history of, and renewed interest in, cardiac timing effects on behaviour and cognition. Cardiac timing effects may be identified by expressing events as a function of their location in the cardiac cycle, and applying circular (i.e. directional) statistics to test cardiac time-behaviour associations. Typically this approach 'stretches' all points in the cardiac cycle equally, but this is not necessarily physiologically valid. Moreover, many tests impose distributional assumptions that are not met by such data. We present a set of statistical techniques robust to this, instantiated within our new Cardiac Timing Toolbox (CaTT) for MATLAB: A physiologically-motivated method of wrapping behaviour to the cardiac cycle; and a set of non-parametric statistical tests that control for common confounds and distributional characteristics of these data. Using a reanalysis of previously published data, we guide readers through analyses using CaTT, aiding researchers in identifying physiologically plausible associations between heart-timing and cognition.

Domain-general enhancements of metacognitive ability through adaptive training.

The metacognitive ability to introspect about self-performance varies substantially across individuals. Given that effective monitoring of performance is deemed important for effective behavioral control, intervening to improve metacognition may have widespread benefits, for example in educational and clinical settings. However, it is unknown whether and how metacognition can be systematically improved through training independently of task performance, or whether metacognitive improvements generalize across different task domains. Across 8 sessions, here we provided feedback to two groups of participants in a perceptual discrimination task: an experimental group (n = 29) received feedback on their metacognitive judgments, while an active control group (n = 32) received feedback on their decision performance only. Relative to the control group, adaptive training led to increases in metacognitive calibration (as assessed by Brier scores), which generalized both to untrained stimuli and an untrained task (recognition memory). Leveraging signal detection modeling we found that metacognitive improvements were driven both by changes in metacognitive efficiency (meta-d'/d') and confidence level, and that later increases in metacognitive efficiency were positively mediated by earlier shifts in confidence. Our results reveal a striking malleability of introspection and indicate the potential for a domain-general enhancement of metacognitive abilities. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved).

Larger Stimuli Require Longer Processing Time for Perception.

The time it takes for a stimulus to reach awareness is often assessed by measuring reaction times (RTs) or by a temporal order judgement (TOJ) task in which perceived timing is compared against a reference stimulus. Dissociations of RT and TOJ have been reported earlier in which increases in stimulus intensity such as luminance intensity results in a decrease of RT, whereas perceived perceptual latency in a TOJ task is affected to a lesser degree. Here, we report that a simple manipulation of stimulus size has stronger effects on perceptual latency measured by TOJ than on motor latency measured by RT tasks. When participants were asked to respond to the appearance of a simple stimulus such as a luminance blob, the perceptual latency measured against a standard reference stimulus was up to 40 ms longer for a larger stimulus. In other words, the smaller stimulus was perceived to occur earlier than the larger one. RT on the other hand was hardly affected by size. The TOJ results were further replicated in a simultaneity judgement task, suggesting that the effects of size are not due to TOJ-specific response biases but more likely reflect an effect on perceived timing.

Predictions Shape Confidence in Right Inferior Frontal Gyrus.

It is clear that prior expectations shape perceptual decision-making, yet their contribution to the construction of subjective decision confidence remains largely unexplored. We recorded fMRI data while participants made perceptual decisions and confidence judgments, manipulating perceptual prior expectations while controlling for potential confounds of attention. Results show that subjective confidence increases as expectations increasingly support the decision, and that this relationship is associated with BOLD activity in right inferior frontal gyrus (rIFG). Specifically, rIFG is sensitive to the discrepancy between expectation and decision (mismatch), and higher mismatch responses are associated with lower decision confidence. Connectivity analyses revealed expectancy information to be represented in bilateral orbitofrontal cortex and sensory signals to be represented in intracalcarine sulcus. Together, our results indicate that predictive information is integrated into subjective confidence in rIFG, and reveal an occipital-frontal network that constructs confidence from top-down and bottom-up signals. This interpretation was further supported by exploratory findings that the white matter density of right orbitofrontal cortex negatively predicted its respective contribution to the construction of confidence. Our findings advance our understanding of the neural basis of subjective perceptual processes by revealing an occipitofrontal functional network that integrates prior beliefs into the construction of confidence. SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT: Perceptual decision-making is typically conceived as an integration of bottom-up and top-down influences. However, perceptual decisions are accompanied by a sense of confidence. Confidence is an important facet of perceptual consciousness yet remains poorly understood. Here we implicate right inferior frontal gyrus in constructing confidence from the discrepancy between perceptual judgment and its prior probability. Furthermore, we place right inferior frontal gyrus within an occipitofrontal network, consisting of orbitofrontal cortex and intracalcarine sulcus, which represents and communicates relevant top-down and bottom-up signals. Together, our data reveal a role of frontal regions in the top-down processes enabling perceptual decisions to become available for conscious report.

Rhythmic Influence of Top-Down Perceptual Priors in the Phase of Prestimulus Occipital Alpha Oscillations.

Prior expectations have a powerful influence on perception, biasing both decision and confidence. However, how this occurs at the neural level remains unclear. It has been suggested that spontaneous alpha-band neural oscillations represent rhythms of the perceptual system that periodically modulate perceptual judgments. We hypothesized that these oscillations instantiate the effects of expectations. While collecting scalp EEG, participants performed a detection task that orthogonally manipulated perceptual expectations and attention. Trial-by-trial retrospective confidence judgments were also collected. Results showed that, independent of attention, prestimulus occipital alpha phase predicted the weighting of expectations on yes/no decisions. Moreover, phase predicted the influence of expectations on confidence. Thus, expectations periodically bias objective and subjective perceptual decision-making together before stimulus onset. Our results suggest that alpha-band neural oscillations periodically transmit prior evidence to visual cortex, changing the baseline from which evidence accumulation begins. In turn, our results inform accounts of how expectations shape early visual processing.