Is there a survival processing effect in metacognition?

Abstract

Memory systems serve an adaptive function for the fitness of organisms. A good example of this is the Survival Processing Effect (SPE) which points to increased retention of information when it is processed in a survival context compared to other contexts. Survival processing may also affect metacognitive processes, by increasing confidence judgments as well as increasing metacognitive sensitivity. No previous study, however, has directly examined whether processing information for survival also has an effect on metacognitive processes. Here we ask whether SPE extends to the metacognitive system in terms of both metacognitive sensitivity and confidence bias. In Experiment 1 participants were asked to rate a list of words in terms of relevance in a survival scenario or a moving scenario. In a surprise old/new recognition test, they were given one word at a time and asked to indicate if they have rated the presented word before and state how confident they are in that choice. Surprisingly, the results did not reveal a SPE, which may have been due to high overall performance in the recognition task. In Experiment 2 we increased the level of difficulty of the memory task, which resulted in a robust SPE, but could not find this effect in metacognitive monitoring. Together, these results suggest that survival processing may not affect metacognitive processes in a reliable fashion.

Fig.1

a An example trial from the usefulness rating task. b An example trial from the distractor task. c An example trial from the surprise memory task. d The procedure of this study

Fig.2

The figure is created by using Jasp (2022). Mean confidence ratings given to first-order false-negative answers in the surprise memory test. Dots indicate each participant’s mean confidence rating given to first-order false-negative answers. The boxes indicate interquartile ranges; the line in the middle indicates the median

Fig.3

The figure is created by using Jasp (2022). Mean confidence ratings given to first-order incorrect answers in the surprise memory test. Dots indicate each participant’s mean confidence rating given to first-order incorrect answers. The boxes indicate interquartile ranges; the line in the middle indicates the median

Fig.4

The figure is created by using Jasp (2022). Performance on the surprise memory task for the survival and moving groups. Dots indicate each participants’ performance in the surprise memory task. The boxes indicate interquartile ranges; the line in the middle indicates the median