Common computations for metacognition and meta-metacognition

Abstract

Recent evidence shows that people have the meta-metacognitive ability to evaluate their metacognitive judgments of confidence. However, it is unclear whether meta-metacognitive judgments are made by a different system and rely on a separate set of computations compared to metacognitive judgments. To address this question, we asked participants (N = 36) to perform a perceptual decision-making task and provide (i) an object-level, Type-1 response about the identity of the stimulus; (ii) a metacognitive, Type-2 response (low/high) regarding their confidence in their Type-1 decision; and (iii) a meta-metacognitive, Type-3 response (low/high) regarding the quality of their Type-2 rating. We found strong evidence for the existence of Type-3, meta-metacognitive ability. In a separate condition, participants performed an identical task with only a Type-1 response followed by a Type-2 response given on a 4-point scale. We found that the two conditions produced equivalent results such that the combination of binary Type-2 and binary Type-3 responses acts similar to a 4-point Type-2 response. Critically, while Type-2 evaluations were subject to metacognitive noise, Type-3 judgments were made at no additional cost. These results suggest that it is unlikely that there is a distinction between Type-2 and Type-3 systems (metacognition and meta-metacognition) in perceptual decision-making and, instead, a single system can be flexibly adapted to produce both Type-2 and Type-3 evaluations recursively.

Keywords: confidence; meta-metacognition; metacognition; perceptual decision-making.

Figure 1.

Separate systems vs. a unified system for Type-2 and Type-3 judgments. (a) Depiction of distinct systems for Type-2 metacognition and Type-3 meta-metacognition. (b) Depiction of a single and unified system for Type-2 and Type-3 judgments. (c) A mapping between Type-2 metacognitive judgments given on a 4-point scale and a combination of binary Type-2 metacognitive judgment followed by a binary Type-3 meta-metacognitive judgment

Figure 2.

Task paradigm. (a) Type-2-only condition. Participants judged which of two squares contained more dots. On each trial, participants indicated their decision confidence (metacognitive rating) using a 4-point scale. (b) Type-2/Type-3 condition. Participants completed the same dot task. However, instead of giving confidence on a 4-point scale, they provided a confidence rating (Type-2 judgment) on a 2-point scale and then a meta-metacognitive rating (Type-3 judgments) again on a 2-point scale (low/high)

Figure 3.

Equivalent results in Type-2/Type-3 and Type-2-only conditions. (a) We found higher metacognitive efficiency (Mratio) in trials with high vs. low Type-3 responses. Critically, equivalent results were obtained in both the Type-2/Type-3 condition and the Type-2-only condition (after rating conversion where the 4-point Type-2 ratings are turned into a type-3 rating combination). (b) Accuracy associated with each confidence rating in the Type-2-only condition and the converted ratings in the Type-2/Type-3 condition. Accuracy increased with confidence to the same extent in both conditions. (c) RT associated with each confidence rating in the Type-2-only condition and the converted ratings in the Type-2/Type-3 condition. RT decreased with confidence to the same extent in both conditions. (d) Sensitivity (d') associated with each decision and confidence criterion. Sensitivity decreases for criteria further away from the decision criterion, as expected from the existence of signal-dependent metacognitive noise (Shekhar and Rahnev 2021b). Critically, the decrease is equivalent for the Type-2-only and the Type-2/Type-3 conditions, indicating the absence of additional “meta-metacognitive noise” that may be expected from a separate Type-3 system. Here, “confidence criterion n /n + 1” indicates the confidence criterion that separates the ratings n and n + 1. n.s., not significant; ***, P < .001