Cross-Domain Association in Metacognitive Efficiency Depends on First-Order Task Types

Abstract

An important yet unresolved question is whether or not metacognition consists of domain-general or domain-specific mechanisms. While most studies on this topic suggest a dissociation between metacognitive abilities at the neural level, there are inconsistent reports at the behavioral level. Specifically, while McCurdy et al. (2013) found a positive correlation between metacognitive efficiency for visual perception and memory, such correlation was not observed in Baird et al. (2013). One possible explanation for this discrepancy is that the former included two-alternative-forced choice (2AFC) judgments in both their visual and memory tasks, whereas the latter used 2AFC for one task and yes/no (YN) judgments for the other. To test the effect of task on cross-domain association in metacognitive efficiency, we conducted two online experiments to mirror McCurdy et al. (2013) and Baird et al. (2013) with considerable statistical power (n = 100), and replicated the main findings of both studies. The results suggest that the use of task could affect cross-domain association in metacognitive efficiency. In the third experiment with the same sample size, we used YN judgments for both tasks and did not find a significant cross-domain correlation in metacognitive efficiency. This suggests that the cross-domain correlation found in McCurdy et al. (2013) was not simply due to the same task being used for both domains, and the absence of cross-domain correlation in Baird et al. (2013) might be due to the use of YN judgments. Our results highlight the importance of avoiding confusion between 2AFC and YN judgments in behavioral tasks for metacognitive research, which is a common problem in many behavioral studies.

Keywords: 2AFC task; behavioral task; domain-general; domain-specific; metacognition.

Figure 1

Timeline for individual trials on the various tasks. (A) Visual task with 2AFC judgments. Subjects were shown two clusters of circles, followed by a blank screen, and were then prompted to discriminate whether the cluster with (on average) larger circles was on the left or right (T1). They then rated how confident they were on a scale of 1–4 (with 1 being not at all confident and 4 being completely confident) in their discrimination judgment (T2). A blank screen ended the trial. (B) Visual task with YN judgments. Each visual task trial requiring YN judgments was identical to trials for the 2AFC visual task, except that subjects were shown only one cluster, and were later prompted to discriminate whether the cluster had (on average) larger circles than a cluster of “medium” size (T1). (C) Memory task with 2AFC judgments. Subjects were shown four patterns of circles, followed by a blank screen. Next, two patterns were presented, one from the previous stimulus presentation and one new pattern; participants were instructed to pick the pattern that appeared before (T1). As with the visual tasks, they then gave confidence judgments on a scale of 1–4 (T2). A blank screen ended the trial. (D) Memory task with YN judgments. Each memory task trial requiring YN judgments was identical to trials for the 2AFC memory task, except that only one pattern was presented during the discrimination portion of the task and subjects were instructed to determine whether it had appeared on the previous stimulus presentation or not (T1).

Figure 2

Correlation between visual and memory metacognitive efficiency when when both tasks involved 2AFC. As in McCurdy et al. (2013), we found a significant positive correlation across subjects, between visual and memory metacognitive efficiency when both tasks involved 2AFC rather than YN judgments. Metacognitive efficiency was quantified using M Ratio, a detection theoretic measure of metacognitive efficiency that accounts for fluctuations in task performance (see section Materials and Methods).

Figure 3

No correlation in metacognitive efficiency when the visual task involved 2AFC judgments and the memory task involved YN judgments. As in Baird et al. (2013), we didn't find a correlation between visual and memory metacognitive efficiency when the visual task involved 2AFC judgments and the memory task involved YN judgments. As in Experiment 1, metacognitive efficiency was quantified using M Ratio (see section Materials and Methods).

Figure 4

No correlation between visual and memory metacognitive efficiency when both tasks involved YN judgments. We did not find a correlation between visual and memory metacognitive efficiency when both tasks involved YN rather than 2AFC judgments. Metacognitive efficiency was quantified using M Ratio (see section Materials and Methods).