title: Neural correlates of metacognitive ability and of feeling confident: a large-scale fMRI study.
abstract: One important aspect of metacognition is the ability to accurately evaluate one's performance. People vary widely in their metacognitive ability and in general are too confident when evaluating their performance. This often leads to poor decision making with potentially disastrous consequences. To further our understanding of the neural underpinnings of these processes, this fMRI study investigated inter-individual differences in metacognitive ability and effects of trial-by-trial variation in subjective feelings of confidence when making metacognitive assessments. Participants (N = 308) evaluated their performance in a high-level social and cognitive reasoning task. The results showed that higher metacognitive accuracy was associated with a decrease in activation in the anterior medial prefrontal cortex, an area previously linked to metacognition on perception and memory. Moreover, the feeling of confidence about one's choices was associated with an increase of activation in reward, memory and motor related areas including bilateral striatum and hippocampus, while less confidence was associated with activation in areas linked with negative affect and uncertainty, including dorsomedial prefrontal and bilateral orbitofrontal cortex. This might indicate that positive affect is related to higher confidence thereby biasing metacognitive decisions towards overconfidence. In support, behavioural analyses revealed that increased confidence was associated with lower metacognitive accuracy.
authors.affiliation: School of Psychological Sciences and Monash Institute of Cognitive and Clinical Neurosciences, Monash University, Australia pascal.molenberghs@monash.edu.
authors.forename: Pascal
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Molenberghs
authors.affiliation: Department of Social Neuroscience, Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Leipzig, Germany.
authors.forename: Fynn-Mathis
authors.initials: FM
authors.lastname: Trautwein
authors.affiliation: Department of Social Neuroscience, Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Leipzig, Germany.
authors.forename: Anne
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Böckler
authors.affiliation: Department of Social Neuroscience, Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Leipzig, Germany.
authors.forename: Tania
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Singer
authors.affiliation: Department of Social Neuroscience, Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Leipzig, Germany.
authors.forename: Philipp
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Kanske
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D003657:Decision Making / Q000502:physiology*; D004644:Emotions / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D059907:Functional Neuroimaging; D006801:Humans; D007206:Individuality; D007600:Judgment / Q000502:physiology*; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008297:Male; D008568:Memory / Q000502:physiology; D000067489:Metacognition / Q000502:physiology*; D008875:Middle Aged; D017397:Prefrontal Cortex / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging* / Q000502:physiology
keywords: confidence; decision making; fMRI; metacognition; social neuroscience