Neural correlates of metamemory: a comparison of feeling-of-knowing and retrospective confidence judgments

Effects of personality traits and mood induction on metamemory judgments and metacognitive beliefs

Although the effects of mood and personality traits on memory performance have previously been studied, their relationship to the metamemory and metacognitive processes is still unknown. In this study, we investigated the effects of mood induction (positive and negative) and personality traits (extroverted and neurotics) on metacognitive beliefs, memory confidence, the judgment of learning (JOL) and feeling of knowing (FOK) judgments during face-name recognition tasks. One hundred twenty-seven participants who met the criteria based on their extraverted and neurotic personality scores on the Big Five Personality Inventory were randomly assigned to positive and negative mood induction conditions. We found that neurotics showed lower JOL judgments and accuracy than extroverts. The interaction effect between mood and personality significantly affected JOL and FOK accuracy, indicating that while extraverts were more accurate during positive induction, neurotics were more accurate during negative induction. In addition, neurotics were underconfident in their memory and reported more negative metacognitive beliefs than extroverts. We concluded that memory and metamemory processes are distinguishable in their relationships with mood states and personality traits. Our data also showed that JOL and FOK are distinct processes that support domain-specific metacognitive judgments.

Lack of effects of online HD-tDCS over the left or right DLPFC in an associative memory and metamemory monitoring task

Neuroimaging studies have shown that activity in the prefrontal cortex correlates with two critical aspects of normal memory functioning: retrieval of episodic memories and subjective "feelings-of-knowing" about our memory. Brain stimulation can be used to test the causal role of the prefrontal cortex in these processes, and whether the role differs for the left versus right prefrontal cortex. We compared the effects of online High-Definition transcranial Direct Current Stimulation (HD-tDCS) over the left or right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) compared to sham during a proverb-name associative memory and feeling-of-knowing task. There were no significant effects of HD-tDCS on either associative recognition or feeling-of-knowing performance, with Bayesian analyses showing moderate support for the null hypotheses. Despite past work showing effects of HD-tDCS on other memory and feeling-of-knowing tasks, and neuroimaging showing effects with similar tasks, these findings add to the literature of non-significant effects with tDCS. This work highlights the need to better understand factors that determine the effectiveness of tDCS, especially if tDCS is to have a successful future as a clinical intervention.

Neural correlates of retrospective memory confidence during face-name associative learning

The ability to accurately assess one's own memory performance during learning is essential for adaptive behavior, but the brain mechanisms underlying this metamemory function are not well understood. We investigated the neural correlates of memory accuracy and retrospective memory confidence in a face-name associative learning task using magnetoencephalography in healthy young adults (n = 32). We found that high retrospective confidence was associated with stronger occipital event-related fields during encoding and widespread event-related fields during retrieval compared to low confidence. On the other hand, memory accuracy was linked to medial temporal activities during both encoding and retrieval, but only in low-confidence trials. A decrease in oscillatory power at alpha/beta bands in the parietal regions during retrieval was associated with higher memory confidence. In addition, representational similarity analysis at the single-trial level revealed distributed but differentiable neural activities associated with memory accuracy and confidence during both encoding and retrieval. In summary, our study unveiled distinct neural activity patterns related to memory confidence and accuracy during associative learning and underscored the crucial role of parietal regions in metamemory.

Neural correlates of metacognition: Disentangling the brain circuits underlying prospective and retrospective second-order judgments through noninvasive brain stimulation

Metacognition encompasses the capability to monitor and control one's cognitive processes, with metamemory and metadecision configuring among the most studied higher order functions. Although imaging experiments evaluated the role of disparate brain regions, neural substrates of metacognitive judgments remain undetermined. The aim of this systematic review is to summarize and discuss the available evidence concerning the neural bases of metacognition which has been collected by assessing the effects of noninvasive brain stimulation (NIBS) on human subjects' metacognitive capacities. Based on such literature analysis, our goal is, at first, to verify whether prospective and retrospective second-order judgments are localized within separate brain circuits and, subsequently, to provide compelling clues useful for identifying new targets for future NIBS studies. The search was conducted following the preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analyses guidelines among PubMed, PsycINFO, PsycARTICLES, PSYNDEX, MEDLINE, and ERIC databases. Overall, 25 studies met the eligibility criteria, yielding a total of 36 experiments employing transcranial magnetic stimulation and 16 ones making use of transcranial electrical stimulation techniques, including transcranial direct current stimulation and transcranial alternating current stimulation. Importantly, we found that both perspective and retrospective judgments about both memory and perceptual decision-making performances depend on the activation of the anterior and lateral portions of the prefrontal cortex, as well as on the activity of more caudal regions such as the premotor cortex and the precuneus. Combining this evidence with results from previous imaging and lesion studies, we advance ventromedial prefrontal cortex as a promising target for future NIBS studies.

fMRI evidence of movement familiarization effects on recognition memory in professional dancers

Dual-process theories propose that recognition memory involves recollection and familiarity; however, the impact of motor expertise on memory recognition, especially the interplay between familiarity and recollection, is relatively unexplored. This functional magnetic resonance imaging study used videos of a dancer performing International Latin Dance Styles as stimuli to investigate memory recognition in professional dancers and matched controls. Participants observed and then reported whether they recognized dance actions, recording the level of confidence in their recollections, whereas blood-oxygen-level-dependent signals measured encoding and recognition processes. Professional dancers showed higher accuracy and hit rates for high-confidence judgments, whereas matched controls exhibited the opposite trend for low-confidence judgments. The right putamen and precentral gyrus showed group-based moderation effects, especially for high-confidence (vs. low-confidence) action recognition in professional dancers. During action recognition, the right superior temporal gyrus and insula showed increased activation for accurate recognition and high-confidence retrieval, particularly in matched controls. These findings highlighting enhanced action memory of professional dancers-evident in their heightened recognition confidence-not only supports the dual-processing model but also underscores the crucial role of expertise-driven familiarity in bolstering successful recollection. Additionally, they emphasize the involvement of the action observation network and frontal brain regions in facilitating detailed encoding linked to intention processing.

HD-tDCS over the left DLPFC increases cued recall and subjective question familiarity rather than other aspects of memory and metamemory

When retrieving information from memory there is an interplay between memory and metamemory processes, and the prefrontal cortex has been implicated in both memory and metamemory. Previous work shown that High Definition transcranial Direct Current Stimulation (HD-tDCS) over the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) can lead to improvements in memory and metamemory monitoring, but findings are mixed. Our original design targeted metamemory, but because the prefrontal cortex plays a role in both memory and metamemory, we tested for effects of HD-tDCS on multiple memory tasks (e.g., recall, cued recall, and recognition) and multiple aspects of metamemory (e.g., once-knew-it ratings, feeling-of-knowing ratings, metamemory accuracy, and metamemory control). There were HD-tDCS-related improvements in cued recall performance, but not other memory tasks. For metamemory, there were HD-tDCS-related increases in subjective once-knew-it ratings, but not other aspects of metamemory. These results highlight the need to consider the effects of HD-tDCS on memory and metamemory at different timepoints during retrieval, as well as specific conditions that show benefits from HD-tDCS.

Comparing event-related potentials of retrospective and prospective metacognitive judgments during episodic and semantic memory

It is unclear whether metacognitive judgments are made on the basis of domain-generality or domain-specificity. In the current study, we compared both behavioral and event-related potential (ERP) correlates of retrospective (retrospective confidence judgments: RCJs), and prospective (feeling of knowing: FOK) metacognitive judgments during episodic and semantic memory tasks in 82 participants. Behavioral results indicated that FOK judgments reflect a domain-specific process, while RCJ reflect a domain-general process. RCJ and FOK judgments produced similar ERP waveforms within the memory tasks, but with different temporal dynamics; thus supporting the hypothesis that retrospective and prospective metacognitive judgments are distinct processes. Our ERP results also suggest that metacognitive judgments are linked to distributed neural substrates, rather than purely frontal lobe functioning. Furthermore, the role of intra-subject and inter-subject differences in metacognitive judgments across and within the memory tasks are highlighted.

A meta-analysis and critical review of metacognitive accuracy in autism

LAY ABSTRACT

The ability to make accurate judgements about our own and others' mental states has been widely researched; however, it is unclear how these two abilities relate to each other. This is important given that there is evidence that autistic individuals can have difficulty with accurately judging others' mental states. Recent evidence suggests that some autistic individuals may also have difficulty accurately judging their own mental states. This may have an impact on various aspects of everyday life but particularly academic success, and therefore it is important that this skill is not overlooked when exploring areas of individual support. The aim of this article is to bring together the research examining autistic individual's ability of making accurate judgements about their own mental states and to establish whether this is an area that warrants further investigation. The results from this article show that autistic individuals may have difficulty making accurate judgements about their own mental states, although this depends on the type of judgement being made. It also highlighted that while autistic children may have difficulties in some areas, these may improve by adulthood. Overall, this article shows that more research is needed to fully understand where specific difficulties lie and how they may be overcome.

Similarity in activity and laterality patterns in the angular gyrus during autobiographical memory retrieval and self-referential processing

Long-term memory is arguably one of the key cognitive functions. At the neural level, the lateral parietal cortex and the angular gyrus, particularly in the left hemisphere, exhibit strong activations during autobiographical and episodic memory retrieval. In a separate sub-field, left-lateralized activations of the angular gyrus are also found during self-referential processing, defined as higher activity when a trait term is judged by participants as being related to them vs. related to someone else. The question is whether episodic/autobiographical memory retrieval and self-referential processing effects are related. In the present study, thirty participants participated in the fMRI study with two separate experiments: autobiographical memory retrieval (Experiment 1) and self-referential processing (Experiment 2). In a series of analyses, including the most critical spatial correlation analysis between experiments, we found neural similarity between autobiographical memory retrieval and self-referential processing. Given that self-referential processing was identified in a selective way, the most plausible interpretation of our findings is that self-referential processing might partly explain the activation of the left angular gyrus during autobiographical memory retrieval. Our results are in line with the seminal view of Endel Tulving that the sense of self is a fundamental attribute of long-term memory recollection. However, it should be emphasized that: a) our results do not imply that the left angular gyrus is not involved in the retrieval of episodic memory details; and b) given that our experiment included an autobiographical memory task, generalization of our results to the episodic memory laboratory tasks has yet to be tested.

Stability and consistency of metamemory judgments within a session

There has been much interest in assessing individual and group differences in metamemory skills. These endeavors require or would benefit from enhanced knowledge about the stability and consistency of metamemory judgments over successive trials. However, few studies have examined these aspects. Thus, the present study investigated and compared the within-session stability and consistency of three major types of metamemory judgment: judgment of learning (JOL), feeling-of-knowing judgment (FOK), and retrospective confidence judgment (RCJ), using a single-task paradigm. A total of 38 healthy young adults (17 males, 21 females) completed three trials of a face–scene associative learning task designed to assess metamemory. In each trial, participants rated their JOLs while studying a new set of face–scene pairs, and then rated their FOKs and RCJs while their memory was being tested. The stability and consistency of the mean confidence ratings and the relationships between confidence rating and memory performance, indexed by two gamma estimates, were analyzed and compared across types of metamemory judgments. Over trials, there was a significant decrease in the mean rating for JOL but not for FOK or RCJ. Also, the gamma scores of JOL, but not that of FOK or RCJ, significantly improved with practice. Furthermore, for each type of metamemory judgment, the mean confidence rating showed excellent consistency across trials. Depending on the judgment type and gamma estimation method, the consistency of gamma scores ranged from poor to excellent. Thus, the present study clarified the temporal dynamics of various types of metamemory judgments and the consistency of metamemory measures.

Changes in brain activity and connectivity as memories age

The role of the hippocampus during memory consolidation is not fully understood, with human and animal experiments producing conflicting conclusions. In particular, human lesion studies tend to indicate that the hippocampus gradually becomes independent from memory over years, whilst animal studies suggest that this can happen over days. Tallman et al. (this issue) used fMRI to investigate activity and functional connectivity in the brain at four different time points following memory encoding. Their findings include a decrease in functional connectivity between the hippocampus and parahippocampal cortex with memory age, which supports the system consolidation theory, but also argues against the reduced involvement of the hippocampus over time. This study sheds new light on the neurobiology of memory.

Improving face identification of mask-wearing individuals

Research has consistently shown that concealing facial features can hinder subsequent identification. The widespread adoption of face masks due to the COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the critical and urgent need to discover techniques to improve identification of people wearing face coverings. Despite years of research on face recognition and eyewitness identifications, there are currently no evidence-based recommendations for lineup construction for cases involving masked individuals. The purpose of this study was to examine identification accuracy of a masked perpetrator as a function of lineup type (i.e., unmasked or masked lineups) and perpetrator presence (i.e., absent or present). In both experiments, discriminability was superior for masked lineups, a result that was due almost exclusively to higher hits rates in target-present conditions. These data suggest that presenting a masked lineup can enhance identification of masked faces, and they have important implications for both eyewitness identification and everyday face recognition of people with face coverings.

An Event-Related Potential Study on Differences Between Higher and Lower Easy of Learning Judgments: Evidence for the Ease-of-Processing Hypothesis

Easy of learning (EOL) judgments occur before active learning begins, and it is a prediction of how difficult it will be to learn new material in future learning. This study compared the amplitude of event-related potential (ERP) components and brain activation regions between high and low EOL judgments by adopting ERPs with a classical EOL judgment paradigm, aiming to confirm the ease-of-processing hypothesis. The results showed that (1) the magnitudes of EOL judgments are affected by encoding fluency cues, and the judgment magnitude increases with encoding fluency; (2) low EOL judgments are associated with higher N400 amplitude at the left superior frontal gyrus (SFG) and left middle frontal gyrus (MFG). High EOL judgments showed enlarged slow-wave (600–1,000 ms) potentials than low EOL judgments at the left medial temporal lobe (MTL), right ventromedial prefrontal cortex (VMPFC), and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC). Our results support the ease-of-processing hypothesis, particularly, by affirming that EOL judgments are affected by encoding fluency in two processing stages. N400 reflects the process of acquiring encoding fluency cues, while slow-wave indicates that individuals use encoding fluency cues for metacognitive monitoring.

Subjective Cognitive Decline Is More Accurate When Metamemory Is Better

Objective

Subjective cognitive decline (SCD) has emerged as one of the first manifestations of Alzheimer's disease (AD). However, discrepancies in its relationship with tests of memory and other cognitive abilities have hindered SCD's diagnostic utility. Inter-individual heterogeneity in metamemory, or memory awareness, and the use of clinical measures of cognition lacking sensitivity to early cognitive dysfunction, may contribute to these discrepancies. We aimed to assess if the relationship between SCD and markers of early cognitive dysfunction is moderated by metamemory abilities.

Methods

The sample included 79 cognitively healthy older adults (77% female, 68% White, and 32% Black participants) with a mean age of 74.4 (SD = 6.1) and 15.9 (SD = 2.7) years of education. Metamemory was assessed using an episodic Feeling of Knowing test with four 5-item trials. Outcome measures included a resolution metric defined as a gamma correlation reflecting the accuracy of item-level predictions ("Will you know the correct answer?"). Early cognitive dysfunction was measured through the Loewenstein-Acevedo Scale for Semantic Interference and Learning (LASSI-L) and the Short-Term Memory Binding Test (STMB), measures sensitive to preclinical AD. SCD was assessed with a 20-item questionnaire that asked participants to compare themselves to others their age on a 7-point Likert scale. Regression analyses examined whether a potential relation between SCD and early cognitive dysfunction was moderated by metamemory.

Results

Subjective cognitive decline was associated with susceptibility to semantic proactive interference such that greater complaints were associated with increased susceptibility to semantic proactive interference (b = -0.30, p = 0.003) only. Metamemory moderated the association between SCD and susceptibility to and recovery of semantic proactive interference such that those with more accurate metamemory showed a stronger association between increased complaints and susceptibility to semantic proactive interference (b = -0.71, p = 0.005; b = -0.62, p = 0.034). Metamemory, however, did not moderate the association of SCD with retroactive semantic interference nor short term memory binding.

Discussion

The accuracy of an individual's metamemory, specifically their ability to adjust moment to moment predictions in line with their performance, can influence the extent to which SCD maps onto objective cognition. Such self-referential assessment should be considered when interpreting SCD.

Effect of feedback type on enhancing subsequent memory: Interaction with initial correctness and confidence level

Feedback is an important factor to enhance subsequent memory, showing that memory performance increases after the feedback than after the no feedback condition during retrieval practice. However, most studies have provided answers as feedback and only examined memory accuracy. It is unclear whether memory is enhanced over time when other types of feedback (e.g., correct/incorrect) is given. In addition, during retrieval practice, participants' responses differ in correctness and confidence level. To what extent these initial memory features interact with feedback type to influence subsequent memory accuracy and confidence level remains unclear. In this study, to address these questions, participants learned a series of sentences, then during the retrieval practice phase, different types of feedback—feedback with correct/incorrect and answer (CA‐feedback), feedback with answer (A‐feedback), feedback with correct/incorrect (C‐feedback), and no feedback—were given after they performed a cued‐recall test and rated the confidence. After retention intervals of 5 min, 1 day, and 7 days, they took final tests, followed by the confidence rating. The results showed that different types of feedback influenced subsequent memory and forgetting by different mechanisms. The CA‐feedback and A‐feedback enhanced memory performance by correcting initial errors and increasing the confidence of correct trials, but the corrected memory was more easily forgotten from 5 min to 7 days. Compared to A‐feedback, the CA‐feedback maintained the corrected memory after 1 day. The C‐feedback did not correct initial errors but slowed the forgetting rate and reduced the confidence of incorrect trials. This study highlighted the interaction between feedback type and initial memory features (correctness, confidence) to influence subsequent memory performance, including memory accuracy and confidence level.

The effects of positive or negative self-talk on the alteration of brain functional connectivity by performing cognitive tasks

Self-talk can improve cognitive performance, but the underlying mechanism of such improvement has not been investigated. This study aimed to elucidate the effects of self-talks on functional connectivity associated with cognitive performance. We used the short form of Progressive Matrices Test (sRPM) to measure differences in performance improvements between self-respect and self-criticism. Participants were scanned using functional magnetic resonance imaging in the following order: baseline, during-sRPM1, post-sRPM1, self-respect or self-criticism, during-sRPM2, and post-sRPM2. Analysis was conducted to identify the self-talks' modulatory effects on the reward-motivation, default mode, and central-executive networks. Increase in sRPM2 score compared to sRPM1 score was observed only after self-criticism. The self-talk-by-repetition interaction effect was not found for during-sRPM, but found for post-sRPM; decreased nucleus accumbens-based connectivity was shown after self-criticism compared with self-respect. However, the significant correlations between the connectivity change and performance change appeared only in the self-respect group. Our findings showed that positive self-talk and negative self-talk differently modulate brain states concerning cognitive performance. Self-respect may have both positive and negative effects due to enhanced executive functions and inaccurate confidence, respectively, whereas self-criticism may positively affect cognitive performance by inducing a less confident state that increases internal motivation and attention.

White matter network disruption and cognitive correlates underlying impaired memory awareness in mild cognitive impairment

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Episodic memory deficits are insufficient for explaining memory anosognosia in MCI.

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Reasoning ability can be used as a basis for identifying memory anosognosia in MCI.

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Memory anosognosia in MCI is a white matter disconnection syndrome.

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Frontal-subcortical and callosal fibers are linked to memory anosognosia in MCI.

Decreased awareness of memory declines in mild cognitive impairment (MCI) has been linked to structural or functional changes in a wide gray matter network; however, the underlying white matter pathway correlations for the memory awareness deficits remain unknown. Moreover, consistent findings have not been obtained regarding the cognitive basis of disturbed awareness of memory declines in MCI. Due to the methodological drawbacks (e.g., correlational analysis without controlling confounders related to clinical status, a problem related to the representativeness of the control group) of previous studies on the aforementioned topic, further investigation is required. To addressed the research gaps, this study investigated white matter microstructural integrity and the cognitive correlates of memory awareness in 87 older adults with or without mild cognitive impairment (MCI). The patients with MCI and healthy controls (HCs) were divided into two subgroups, namely those with normal awareness (NA) and poor awareness (PA) for memory deficit, according to the discrepancy scores calculated from the differences between subjective and objective memory evaluations. Only the results for HCs with NA (HC-NA) were compared with those for the two MCI groups (i.e., MCI-NA and MCI-PA). The three groups were matched on demographic and clinical variables. An advanced diffusion imaging technique—diffusion spectrum imaging—was used to investigate the integrity of the white matter tract. The results revealed that although the HC-NA group outperformed the two MCI groups on several cognitive tests, the two MCI groups exhibited comparable performance across different neuropsychological tests, except for the test on reasoning ability. Compared with the other two groups, the MCI-PA group exhibited lower integrity in bilateral frontal-striatal fibers, left anterior thalamocortical radiations, and callosal fibers connecting bilateral inferior parietal regions. These results could not be explained by gray matter morphometric differences. Overall, the results indicated that mnemonic anosognosia was not sufficient to explain the memory awareness deficits observed in the patients with MCI. Our brain imaging findings also support the concept of anosognosia for memory deficit as a disconnection syndrome in MCI.

Metric error monitoring: Another generalized mechanism for magnitude representations?

Error monitoring refers to the ability to monitor one's own task performance without explicit feedback. This ability is studied typically in two-alternative forced-choice (2AFC) paradigms. Recent research showed that humans can also keep track of the magnitude and direction of errors in different magnitude domains (e.g., numerosity, duration, length). Based on the evidence that suggests a shared mechanism for magnitude representations, we aimed to investigate whether metric error monitoring ability is commonly governed across different magnitude domains. Participants reproduced/estimated temporal, numerical, and spatial magnitudes after which they rated their confidence regarding first order task performance and judged the direction of their reproduction/estimation errors. Participants were also tested in a 2AFC perceptual decision task and provided confidence ratings regarding their decisions. Results showed that variability in reproductions/estimations and metric error monitoring ability, as measured by combining confidence and error direction judgements, were positively related across temporal, spatial, and numerical domains. Metacognitive sensitivity in these metric domains was also positively associated with each other but not with metacognitive sensitivity in the 2AFC perceptual decision task. In conclusion, the current findings point at a general metric error monitoring ability that is shared across different metric domains with limited generalizability to perceptual decision-making.

Anosognosia in Mild Cognitive Impairment: Lack of Awareness of Memory Difficulties Characterizes Prodromal Alzheimer's Disease

While anosognosia is often present in Alzheimer's disease, the degree of awareness of cognitive difficulties in the earlier stages, such as Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI), is less clear. Using a questionnaire and Feeling-of-Knowing tasks, the aims of this study were (1) to test the hypothesis that anosognosia is present specifically in prodromal AD stage in patients that, owing to a more severe AD neuropathology, will rapidly progress to overt dementia and (2) to assess the neural bases of self-awareness for memory functioning. A group of 44 patients with amnestic MCI and a group of 29 healthy older participants (CTRL) performed two Feeling-of-Knowing tasks (episodic and semantic FOK) and responded to the Functional Memory Scale (MARS), also completed by one of their relatives. They underwent FDG-PET and structural MRI. The participants were followed clinically for 4 years. At the end of follow-up, 23 patients with MCI developed Alzheimer's disease (converters) and 21 patients still presented symptoms of MCI without progression (non-converters). The analyses focused on the data from inclusion stratified according to clinical status 4 years later (converters, non-converters, CTRL). On the episodic FOK task, converters patients overestimated their ability to later recognize unrecalled words and they showed prediction accuracy (Hamann coefficient) at the level of chance. No difficulty was observed in any group with the semantic FOK task. On the MARS, converters patients had a higher anosognosia score than non-converters patients and CTRL, which did not differ from each other. Correlations between self-awareness scores and neuroimaging data using small volume correction analyses in a priori regions of interest in converters indicated that inaccurate episodic FOK judgments was related to changes in brain areas that might support interpretation of retrieved content for judging the likelihood of recognition. For the MARS, the association between anosognosia and decreased gray matter density of the left inferior prefrontal cortex in converters might indicate poor inhibition over outdated personal knowledge. In amnestic MCI, anosognosia could be an early sign of neurodegeneration in brain areas that would support control mechanisms over memory representations.

Neural Development of Memory and Metamemory in Childhood and Adolescence: Toward an Integrative Model of the Development of Episodic Recollection

Memory and metamemory processes are essential to retrieve detailed memories and appreciate the phenomenological experience of recollection. Developmental cognitive neuroscience has made strides in revealing the neural changes associated with improvements in memory and metamemory during childhood and adolescence. We argue that hippocampal changes, in concert with surrounding cortical regions, support developmental improvements in the precision, complexity, and flexibility of memory representations. In contrast, changes in frontoparietal regions promote efficient encoding and retrieval strategies. A smaller body of literature on the neural substrates of metamemory development suggests that error monitoring processes implemented in the anterior insula and dorsal anterior cingulate cortex trigger, and perhaps support the development of, metacognitive evaluationsin the prefrontal cortex, while developmental changes in the parietal cortex support changes in the phenomenological experience of episodic retrieval. Our conclusions highlight the necessity of integrating these lines of research into a comprehensive model on the neurocognitive development of episodic recollection.

What makes creative advertisements memorable? The role of insight

Sudden insight is often observed during creative problem solving and studies have suggested that advertisements can likewise evoke an insight experience. To date, however, there is limited empirical evidence on whether advertisements can trigger ideational insight, and, if so, whether such insight plays a role in advertising memorability. This study aimed to explore the insight experience evoked by advertisements and to examine the role of such experimentally-induced insight in predicted memory and metamemory performance. Participants viewed standardized advertising images sequentially, with each image presentation being followed immediately by a second presentation either with or without a brief description of the advertising idea. Next, participants were asked to recall the three most impressive advertisements. Finally, participants were randomly divided to complete either immediate (5 min later) or delayed (3 days later) recognition tests and to provide retrospective confidence judgments (RCJs). Recall of creative advertisements was better than standard advertisements and most of them evoked insight. In addition, recognition accuracy was greater for creative advertisements relative to standard advertisements and metamemory performance as elicited through RCJs was enhanced. Further analyses confirmed the documented importance of insight for memory consolidation. The findings suggest that insight makes advertisements more memorable, especially those that are creative.

Retrospective metamemory monitoring of semantic memory in community-dwelling older adults with subjective cognitive decline and mild cognitive impairment

In neurodegenerative conditions, better memory/cognitive awareness, indexed by greater "metamemory monitoring accuracy", is linked to stronger cognitive remediation outcomes. Differences in metamemory monitoring accuracy in predementia conditions, which could inform treatment effectiveness, have not been systematically investigated. We utilized a retrospective confidence judgment (RCJ) task for general knowledge recognition in community-dwelling older adults: 106 cognitively healthy (HC), 68 subjective cognitive decline (SCD) despite intact neuropsychological function, 14 amnestic mild cognitive impairment (aMCI), and 31 non-amnestic mild cognitive impairment (naMCI). Participants gave confidence ratings after making recognition responses to general knowledge questions. Recognition accuracy, confidence levels, and absolute and relative RCJ accuracy (i.e., metamemory monitoring accuracy) were analysed. Compared to HC and SCD, absolute RCJ accuracy was significantly poorer in both MCI groups but relative RCJ accuracy was significantly poorer in naMCI, but not aMCI. This novel result may be driven by lower confidence for correct recognition responses in naMCI and suggests that poorer RCJ accuracy in naMCI may be attributable to poorer performance monitoring. We discuss results in relation to the possibility that individuals in distinct preclinical dementia conditions, who have different levels of memory/cognitive awareness, may differentially benefit from cognitive remediation strategies tailored to their levels of memory/cognitive awareness.

Toward a Neurocognitive Understanding of the Algorithms That Underlie Metamemory Judgments

Abstract. Neurocognitive research on metamemory thus far has mostly focused on localizing brain regions that track metacognitive judgments and distinguishing metacognitive processing from primary cognition. With much known about the localization of metamemory in the brain, there is a growing opportunity to develop a more algorithmic characterization of the brain processes underlying metamemory. We briefly review some current neurocognitive metamemory research, including relevant brain regions and theories about their role in metamemory. We review some computational neuroimaging approaches and, as an illustrative example, describe their use in studies on the delayed-JOL (judgments of learning) effect. Finally, we discuss how researchers might apply computational approaches to several unresolved questions in the behavioral metamemory literature. Such research could provide a bridge between cognitive and neurocognitive research on metamemory and provide novel insights into the algorithms underlying metamemory judgments, thus informing theory and methodology in both areas.

The neural basis of metacognitive monitoring during arithmetic in the developing brain

In contrast to a substantial body of research on the neural basis of cognitive performance in several academic domains, less is known about how the brain generates metacognitive (MC) awareness of such performance. The existing work on the neurobiological underpinnings of metacognition has almost exclusively been done in adults and has largely focused on lower level cognitive processing domains, such as perceptual decision‐making. Extending this body of evidence, we investigated MC monitoring by asking children to solve arithmetic problems, an educationally relevant higher‐order process, while providing concurrent MC reports during fMRI acquisition. Results are reported on 50 primary school children aged 9–10 years old. The current study is the first to demonstrate that brain activity during MC monitoring, relative to the control task, increased in the left inferior frontal gyrus in children. This brain activity further correlated with children's arithmetic development over a 3‐year time period. These data are in line with the frequently suggested, yet never empirically tested, hypothesis that activity in the prefrontal cortex during arithmetic is related to the higher‐order process of MC monitoring.

The role of metamemory on cognitive complaints in cancer patients

OBJECTIVE

Although cancer patients frequently report cognitive disturbances, it is commonly asserted a lack of association between cognitive complaints and neuropsychological test performances. Our goal was to better understand the relationships between subjective and objective cognitive scores through a metamemory monitoring assessment.

METHODS

Sixty cancer patients currently treated by chemotherapy and/or targeted therapy, and 30 healthy controls (HC) were included. Cognitive complaint was assessed by FACT-cog, QAM and DEX questionnaires. One or more z-scores ≤-1.65 among these three questionnaires defined the presence of cognitive complaints. Objective cognitive performances assessed episodic memory, processing speed and executive functions/working memory (ESR paradigm, TMT, Stroop, n-back). Metamemory was assessed with a Judgment of Learning (JOL) task.

RESULTS

Patients with cognitive complaints had significantly more depressive and anxiety symptoms (ps < .004), and lower performances on several cognitive tests (ps < .05) than both patients without complaints and HC. More specifically, analyses of the metamemory scores revealed that HC gave significantly more overestimations ("Yes" judgment and incorrect recall) than patients with cognitive complaints (p = .036). For these patients, JOL scores correlated positively with executive functioning (ps < .01).

CONCLUSION

Metamemory monitoring seems to be well-preserved during cancer. What is more, patients make less overestimation than HC, and they do not underestimate their memory. An accurate self-estimation of memory abilities in cancer patients, particularly those with mild cognitive deficits, may play an adaptive function. Our results suggest that the discrepancy frequently reported between cognitive complaints and objective cognitive scores may not be related to metamemory monitoring dysfunction.

Metacognitive domain specificity in feeling-of-knowing but not retrospective confidence

Previous research has converged on the idea that metacognitive evaluations of memory dissociate between semantic and episodic memory tasks, even if the type of metacognitive judgement is held constant. This often observed difference has been the basis of much theoretical reasoning about the types of cues available when making metacognitive judgements of memory and how metacognition is altered in memory pathologies. Here, we sought to revisit the difference between episodic and semantic feeling-of-knowing (FOK) judgements in the light of recent research which has supported a domain general account of metacognition. One hundred participants performed classical episodic and semantic memory tasks with FOK judgements and confidence judgements. Using the meta-d' framework, we applied a hierarchical Bayesian model to estimate metacognitive sensitivity and cross-task covariance. Results revealed a significant correlation in metacognitive efficiency (meta-d'/d') between the episodic memory task and the semantic memory task for confidence judgements; however, no evidence was found for a cross-task correlation for FOK judgements. This supports the view that FOK judgements are based on different cues in semantic and episodic memory, whereas confidence judgements are domain general.

One-Shot Tagging During Wake and Cueing During Sleep With Spatiotemporal Patterns of Transcranial Electrical Stimulation Can Boost Long-Term Metamemory of Individual Episodes in Humans

Targeted memory reactivation (TMR) during slow-wave oscillations (SWOs) in sleep has been demonstrated with sensory cues to achieve about 5-12% improvement in post-nap memory performance on simple laboratory tasks. But prior work has not yet addressed the one-shot aspect of episodic memory acquisition, or dealt with the presence of interference from ambient environmental cues in real-world settings. Further, TMR with sensory cues may not be scalable to the multitude of experiences over one's lifetime. We designed a novel non-invasive non-sensory paradigm that tags one-shot experiences of minute-long naturalistic episodes in immersive virtual reality (VR) with unique spatiotemporal amplitude-modulated patterns (STAMPs) of transcranial electrical stimulation (tES). In particular, we demonstrated that these STAMPs can be re-applied as brief pulses during SWOs in sleep to achieve about 10-20% improvement in the metamemory of targeted episodes compared to the control episodes at 48 hours after initial viewing. We found that STAMPs can not only facilitate but also impair metamemory for the targeted episodes based on an interaction between pre-sleep metamemory and the number of STAMP applications during sleep. Overnight metamemory improvements were mediated by spectral power increases following the offset of STAMPs in the slow-spindle band (8-12 Hz) for left temporal areas in the scalp electroencephalography (EEG) during sleep. These results prescribe an optimal strategy to leverage STAMPs for boosting metamemory and suggest that real-world episodic memories can be modulated in a targeted manner even with coarser, non-invasive spatiotemporal stimulation.

Effects of parietal exogenous oscillatory field potentials on subjectively perceived memory confidence

Previous research suggests involvement of parietal theta (3-7 Hz) power in subjectively perceived memory confidence during retrieval. To obtain further insights into the role of parietal theta activity during retrieval in processes associated with performance and confidence, fifty-four healthy volunteers performed a recognition memory task in a within-subject sham controlled transcranial alternating current stimulation (tACS) study. Participants encoded a subset of words at specific on-screen locations. During the retrieval phase accuracy and subjectively perceived confidence on item and source memory were evaluated while administering exogenous alternating field potentials. Results showed that 3.5 Hz tACS decreased subjectively perceived memory confidence as compared to sham and 8 Hz tACS. No tACS effects were found on accuracy regarding item and source memory. Our findings suggest that theta activity in the parietal cortex is implicated in subjectively perceived confidence in word recognition.

Confidence guides spontaneous cognitive offloading

BACKGROUND

Cognitive offloading is the use of physical action to reduce the cognitive demands of a task. Everyday memory relies heavily on this practice; for example, when we write down to-be-remembered information or use diaries, alerts, and reminders to trigger delayed intentions. A key goal of recent research has been to investigate the processes that trigger cognitive offloading. This research has demonstrated that individuals decide whether or not to offload based on a potentially erroneous metacognitive evaluation of their mental abilities. Therefore, improving the accuracy of metacognitive evaluations may help to optimise offloading behaviour. However, previous studies typically measure participants' use of an explicitly instructed offloading strategy, in contrast to everyday life where offloading strategies must often be generated spontaneously.

RESULTS

We administered a computer-based task requiring participants to remember delayed intentions. One group of participants was explicitly instructed on a method for setting external reminders; another was not. The latter group spontaneously set reminders but did so less often than the instructed group. Offloading improved performance in both groups. Crucially, metacognition (confidence in unaided memory ability) guided both instructed and spontaneous offloading: Participants in both groups set more reminders when they were less confident (regardless of actual memory ability).

CONCLUSIONS

These results show that the link between metacognition and cognitive offloading holds even when offloading strategies need to be spontaneously generated. Thus, metacognitive interventions are potentially able to alter offloading behaviour, without requiring offloading strategies to be explicitly instructed.

Decreased meta-memory is associated with early tauopathy in cognitively unimpaired older adults

The ability to accurately judge memory efficiency (meta-memory monitoring) for newly learned (episodic) information, is decreased in older adults and even worse in Alzheimer's disease (AD), whereas no differences have been found for semantic meta-memory. The pathological substrates of this phenomenon are poorly understood. Here, we examine the association between meta-memory monitoring for episodic and semantic information to the two major proteinopathies in AD: amyloid (Aβ) and tau pathology in a group of cognitively unimpaired older adults. All participants underwent multi-tracer PET and meta-memory monitoring was assessed using a feeling-of-knowing (FOK) task for non-famous (episodic) and famous (semantic) face-name pairs. Whole brain voxel-wise correlations between meta-memory and PET data were conducted (controlling for memory), as well as confirmatory region-of-interest analyses. Participants had reduced episodic FOK compared to semantic FOK. Decreased episodic FOK was related to tauopathy in the medial temporal lobe regions, including the entorhinal cortex and temporal pole, whereas decreased semantic FOK was related to increased tau in regions associated with the semantic knowledge network. No association was found with Aβ-pathology. Alterations in the ability to accurately judge memory efficiency (in the absence of memory decline) may be a sensitive clinical indicator of AD pathophysiology in the pre-symptomatic phase.

Neural correlates of altered insight in frontotemporal dementia: a systematic review

Altered insight into disease or specific symptoms is a prominent clinical feature of frontotemporal dementia (FTD). Understanding the neural bases of insight is crucial to help improve FTD diagnosis, classification and management. A systematic review to explore the neural correlates of altered insight in FTD and associated syndromes was conducted. Insight was fractionated to examine whether altered insight into different neuropsychological/behavioural objects is underpinned by different or compatible neural correlates. 6 databases (Medline, Embase, PsycINFO, Web of Science, BIOSIS and ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global) were interrogated between 1980 and August 2019. 15 relevant papers were found out of 660 titles screened. The studies included suggest that different objects of altered insight are associated with distinctive brain areas in FTD. For example, disease unawareness appears to predominantly correlate with right frontal involvement. In contrast, altered insight into social cognition potentially involves, in addition to frontal areas, the temporal gyrus, insula, parahippocampus and amygdala. Impaired insight into memory problems appears to be related to the frontal lobes, postcentral gyrus, parietal cortex and posterior cingulate. These results reflect to a certain extent those observed in other neurodegenerative conditions like Alzheimer's disease (AD) and also other brain disorders. Nevertheless, they should be cautiously interpreted due to variability in the methodological aspects used to reach those conclusions. Future work should triangulate different insight assessment approaches and brain imaging techniques to increase the understanding of this highly relevant clinical phenomenon in dementia.

Confidence of emotion expression recognition recruits brain regions outside the face perception network

Metacognitive beliefs about emotions expressed by others are crucial to social life, yet very little studied. To what extent does our confidence in emotion expression recognition depend on perceptual or other non-perceptual information? We obtained behavioral and magnetic resonance imaging measures while participants judged either the emotion in ambiguous faces or the size of two lines flanking these faces, and then rated their confidence on decision accuracy. Distinct behavioral and neural mechanisms were identified for confidence and perceptual decision in both tasks. Participants overestimated their emotion recognition (ER) accuracy, unlike visual size judgments. Whereas expression discrimination recruited several areas in the face-processing network, confidence for ER uniquely engaged the bilateral retrosplenial/posterior cingulate complex and left parahippocampal gyrus. Further, structural white matter connectivity of the former region predicted metacognitive sensitivity. These results highlight a key role for brain mechanisms integrating perception with contextual mnemonic information in the service of confidence during ER.

Postdecisional Processing Delays in Metacognitive Monitoring After Traumatic Brain Injury

OBJECTIVE

To document the process by which metacognitive judgments ("online" monitoring of one's own cognitive performance during task completion) are made after traumatic brain injury (TBI).

PARTICIPANTS

Sixteen community-dwelling adults with moderate to severe TBI and 16 matched healthy controls.

DESIGN

Prospective, cross-sectional design.

MEASURES

Metacognitive retrospective confidence judgments and reaction times were collected as participants performed a metamemory task.

RESULTS

Adults with TBI did not differ from healthy peers in metacognitive accuracy; however, they took significantly longer to make retrospective confidence judgments. Retrospective confidence judgment reaction times were not consistently correlated to measures of processing speed in either sample.

CONCLUSIONS

Adults with TBI engage in different postdecisional processes to make metacognitive judgments compared with healthy controls. Findings suggest that reaction times may be an important dimension of metacognition to assess clinically after TBI.

Regulation of action selection based on metacognition in humans via a ventral and dorsal medial prefrontal cortical network

Metacognition is defined as cognition about one's own cognitive state; it enables us to estimate our own performance during goal-directed actions and to select a suitable strategy based on that estimation. Identifying the neural mechanisms that underlie this process will contribute to our understanding of how we realize adaptive self-control in daily life. Here, we focused on the neural substrates that allow us to voluntarily utilize prospective metacognition to carry out such action selection. Participants were asked to bet on their recall of sound stimuli presented at an earlier time in a delayed match-to-sample task of rapidly changing sound stimuli. During the task, brain activity was measured using functional magnetic resonance imaging. We found that the brain network composed of the ventral and dorsal parts of the medial prefrontal cortex and the medial precuneus regulated the strategic selection of risk/return profiles based on metacognition. In particular, increments in functional connectivity between the ventral and dorsal medial prefrontal cortices during high-risk/return bets correlated with the adaptiveness of the bet (as measured by the correspondence between choosing high risk/return bets and high accuracy of task performance). This index is considered to reflect the degree of voluntary use of metacognition to bet. These findings suggest that the strong connectivity within the network involving the ventral and dorsal medial prefrontal cortices enables us to utilize metacognition to select actions for achieving a goal efficiently.

Neurobiological basis of feeling of knowing in episodic memory

Feeling of knowing (FOK) is a metacognitive process which allows individuals to predict the likelihood that they will be able to remember, in the future, information which they currently cannot recall. Although FOK provides evidence for the mechanisms of metacognitive systems, the neurobiological basis of FOK is still unclear. We investigated the neural correlates of FOK induced by an episodic memory task in 77 younger adult participants. Data were gathered using event-related potentials (ERPs). ERP components during high, low, extremely high and extremely low FOK judgments were analyzed. Stimulus-locked ERP analyses indicated that FOK judgment was associated with greater positivity for P200 component at frontal, central, and parietal electrode zones and greater negativity for the N200 component at parietal electrode zones. Furthermore, results revealed that amplitude of the ERP components for FOK judgments were affected by the level of FOK judgment. Results suggest that ERP components of FOK judgment observed within a 200 ms time window support the perceptual fluency-based model.

Hemisphere-specific effects of prefrontal theta-burst stimulation on visual recognition memory accuracy and awareness

BACKGROUND

The prefrontal cortex has been implicated in episodic memory and the awareness of memory. Few studies have probed the nature and necessity of its role via brain stimulation. There are uncertainties regarding whether the hemisphere of stimulation predicts effects on memory and whether effects of stimulation are format-specific, with most previous studies utilizing verbal/semantic stimuli.

OBJECTIVE

Our primary objective was to determine if theta-burst transcranial magnetic stimulation (TBS) to prefrontal cortex modulates visual memory accuracy, visual memory awareness, or both, and whether these effects depend on brain hemisphere.

METHODS

We administered TBS to 12 individuals in either left prefrontal, right prefrontal, or a sham location on three separate days. We then administered a visual associative-memory task incorporating global-level awareness judgments and feeling-of-knowing (FOK) judgments on test trials for which retrieval failed.

RESULTS

Overall memory accuracy significantly improved after right hemisphere TBS compared to sham. Simultaneously, subjects were relatively underconfident after right TBS, suggesting minimal awareness of memory accuracy improvements. The correspondence between FOKs and later recognition accuracy suggested a pattern of disruption in prospective memory monitoring accuracy after left TBS.

CONCLUSIONS

Our findings provide unique evidence for improved visual memory accuracy after right prefrontal TBS. These results also suggest right prefrontal lateralization for visual memory and left-hemisphere specialization for item-level prospective memory awareness judgments. Taken together, these results provided continued support for noninvasive stimulation to prefrontal cortex as a means of potentially improving memory and causally influencing prospective memory awareness.

Age-related differences in task-induced brain activation is not task specific: Multivariate pattern generalization between metacognition, cognition and perception

Adolescence is associated with widespread maturation of brain structures and functional connectivity profiles that shift from local to more distributed and better integrated networks, which are active during a variety of cognitive tasks. Nevertheless, the approach to examine task-induced developmental brain changes is function-specific, leaving the question open whether functional maturation is specific to the particular cognitive demands of the task used, or generalizes across different tasks. In the present study we examine the hypothesis that functional brain maturation is driven by global changes in how the brain handles cognitive demands. Multivariate pattern classification analysis (MVPA) was used to examine whether age discriminative task-induced activation patterns generalize across a wide range of information processing levels. 25 young (13-years old) and 22 old (17-years old) adolescents performed three conceptually different tasks of metacognition, cognition and visual processing. MVPA applied within each task indicated that task-induced brain activation is consistent and reliably different between ages 13 and 17. These age-discriminative activation patterns proved to be common across the different tasks used, despite the differences in cognitive demands and brain structures engaged by each of the three tasks. MVP classifiers trained to detect age-discriminative patterns in brain activation during one task were significantly able to decode age from brain activation maps during execution of other tasks with accuracies between 63 and 75%. The results emphasize that age-specific characteristics of task-induced brain activation have to be understood at the level of brain-wide networks that show maturational changes in their organization and processing efficacy during adolescence.

Metamemory monitoring in Alzheimer's disease A systematic review

Metamemory is the awareness of one’s own knowledge and control of memory, and refers to the online ability to gather information about the current state of the memory system.

Thinking about thinking: A coordinate-based meta-analysis of neuroimaging studies of metacognitive judgements

Metacognition supports reflection upon and control of other cognitive processes. Despite metacognition occupying a central role in human psychology, its neural substrates remain underdetermined, partly due to study-specific differences in task domain and type of metacognitive judgement under study. It is also unclear how metacognition relates to other apparently similar abilities that depend on recursive thought such as theory of mind or mentalising. Now that neuroimaging studies of metacognition are more prevalent, we have an opportunity to characterise consistencies in neural substrates identified across different analysis types and domains. Here we used quantitative activation likelihood estimation methods to synthesise findings from 47 neuroimaging studies on metacognition, divided into categories based on the target of metacognitive evaluation (memory and decision-making), analysis type (judgement-related activation, confidence-related activation, and predictors of metacognitive sensitivity), and, for metamemory judgements, temporal focus (prospective and retrospective). A domain-general network, including medial and lateral prefrontal cortex, precuneus, and insula was associated with the level of confidence in self-performance in both decision-making and memory tasks. We found preferential engagement of right anterior dorsolateral prefrontal cortex in metadecision experiments and bilateral parahippocampal cortex in metamemory experiments. Results on metacognitive sensitivity were inconclusive, likely due to fewer studies reporting this contrast. Finally, by comparing our results to meta-analyses of mentalising, we obtain evidence for common engagement of the ventromedial and anterior dorsomedial prefrontal cortex in both metacognition and mentalising, suggesting that these regions may support second-order representations for thinking about the thoughts of oneself and others.

Cortical thickness and metacognition in cognitively diverse older adults

OBJECTIVE

Metacognition, or the ability to accurately identify, appraise, and monitor one's deficits, is commonly impaired in Alzheimer's disease (AD). Poor metacognition prevents correct appraisal of a range of physical, cognitive, and emotional symptoms and facilitates anosognosia, which has important clinical implications for individuals (e.g., diminished treatment adherence, increased engagement in high-risk situations) and caregivers (e.g., higher burden). However, the neural correlates of metacognitive disturbance are still debated in the literature, partly because of the subjective nature of traditional awareness measures.

METHOD

An objective Feeling of Knowing (FOK) task was used to measure metamemory capacity in a group of cognitively diverse older adults, including 14 with mild to moderate AD and 20 cognitively healthy older adults. The association between three different objective metamemory measures of the FOK task and regional cortical thickness (12 bilateral regions of interest [ROIs] hypothesized to support self-awareness) was analyzed using partial correlations.

RESULTS

Less accurate metamemory at the local and global levels was associated with reduced right posterior cingulate cortical thickness, r = -0.42, p = .02 and reduced right medial prefrontal, r = -0.39, p = .029, respectively.

CONCLUSIONS

To our knowledge, this was the first study to examine metacognition in relation to cortical thickness. Both global and local metamemory functions appear to rely on the integrity of right sided midline regions, known to be important for processing self-referential information. Findings are conceptualized with regard to the Default Mode Network, and also considered in relation to recent findings pointing to the right insula as a region critical for self-awareness. (PsycINFO Database Record

Metacognition of visuomotor decisions in conversion disorder

Motor conversion disorder (CD) entails genuine disturbances in the subjective experience of patients who maintain they are unable to perform a motor function, despite lack of apparent neurological damage. Abilities by which individuals assess their own capacities during performance in a task are called metacognitive, and distinctive impairment of such abilities is observed in several disorders of self-awareness such as blindsight and anosognosia. In CD, previous research has focused on the recruitment of motor and emotional brain systems, generally linking symptoms to altered limbic-motor interactions; however, metacognitive function has not been studied to our knowledge. Here we tested ten CD patients and ten age-gender matched controls during a visually-guided motor paradigm, previously employed in healthy controls (HC), allowing us to probe for motor awareness and metacognition. Participants had to draw straight trajectories towards a visual target while, unbeknownst to them, deviations were occasionally introduced in the reaching trajectory seen on the screen. Participants then reported both awareness of deviations and confidence in their response. Activity in premotor and cingulate cortex distinguished between conscious and unconscious movement corrections in controls better than patients. Critically, whereas controls engaged the left superior precuneus and middle temporal region during confidence judgments, CD patients recruited bilateral parahippocampal and amygdalo-hippocampal regions instead. These results reveal that distinct brain regions subserve metacognitive monitoring for HC and CD, pointing to different mechanisms and sources of information used to monitor and form confidence judgments of motor performance. While brain systems involved in sensory-motor integration and vision are more engaged in controls, CD patients may preferentially rely on memory and contextual associative processing, possibly accounting for how affect and memories can imbue current motor experience in these patients.

When do you know what you know? The emergence of memory monitoring

Recent research on comparative metacognition shows that animals, like humans, can differentiate between what they know and what they do not know. However, not much is known about the metacognitive behaviors of human children during their early years. To explore the emergence of memory-monitoring skills, two experiments were conducted using nonverbal tasks adapted from the work of Kornell, Son, and Terrace (2007) and Hampton (2001). Experiment 1 endeavored to determine when children began to show the ability to monitor their memories retrospectively. Experiment 2 aimed to reveal when young children knew what they knew by assessing their prospective monitoring. The results suggested that 4- to 5-year-olds had the ability to judge retrospectively their accuracy in a serial position task, whereas 3- to 4-year-olds did not. In contrast, 4.5- to 5-year-olds could discern items present in and absent from their memory before recognition, whereas 4- to 4.5-year-olds could not. In conclusion, 4-year-olds began to make accurate confidence judgments retrospectively, and children who are approximately 4.5years old began to demonstrate prospective memory-monitoring skills.

Individual Differences in the Accuracy of Judgments of Learning Are Related to the Gray Matter Volume and Functional Connectivity of the Left Mid-Insula

The judgment of learning (JOL) is an important form of prospective metamemory judgment, and the biological basis of the JOL process is an important topic in metamemory research. Although previous task-related functional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) studies have examined the brain regions underlying the JOL process, the neural correlates of individual differences in JOL accuracy require further investigation. This study used structural and resting-state functional MRI to investigate whether individual differences in JOL accuracy are related to the gray matter (GM) volume and functional connectivity of the bilateral insula and medial Brodmann area (BA) 11, which are assumed to be related to JOL accuracy. We found that individual differences in JOL accuracy were related to the GM volume of the left mid-insula and to the functional connectivity between the left mid-insula and various other regions, including the left superior parietal lobule/precuneus, bilateral inferior parietal lobule/intraparietal sulcus, right frontal pole and left parahippocampal gyrus/fusiform gyrus/cerebellum. Further analyses indicated that the functional connectivity related to individual differences in JOL accuracy could be divided into two factors and might support information integration and selective attention processes underlying accurate JOLs. In addition, individual differences in JOL accuracy were not related to the GM volume or functional connectivity of the medial BA 11. Our findings provide novel evidence for the role of the left mid-insula and its functional connectivity in the JOL process.

Deviant functional activation and connectivity of the right insula are associated with lack of awareness of episodic memory impairment in nonamnesic alcoholism

A disorder of metamemory, expressed as unawareness of mnemonic ability, is typically associated with the profound amnesia of Korsakoff's Syndrome (KS). A similar but less severe type of limited awareness can also occur in non-KS alcoholism and is observed as an impairment in generating Feeling-of-Knowing (FOK) predictions about future recognition performance. We previously found that FOK accuracy was selectively related to volumes of the insula in alcoholics involved in the present study. Unknown, however, are the neural substrates of unawareness of memory impairment in alcoholism. A task-activated fMRI paradigm served to identify neural nodes and networks implicated in inaccurate self-estimation of mnemonic ability in sober alcoholics while they made prospective FOK judgments in an episodic memory paradigm. Lower activation in the right insula correlated with greater overestimations of future memory abilities in alcoholics. Weaker connectivity of the right insula with the left dorsal anterior cingulate cortex, a node of the salience network, and stronger connectivity of the right insula with the right ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC), a node of the default mode network (DMN), co-occurred in alcoholics relative to the controls. Specifically, alcoholics, who failed to desynchronize insula-vmPFC activity, had greater overestimation of their memory predictions and poorer recognition performance. This study provides novel support that deviant functional activation and connectivity involving the right insula, a hub of the salience network, appears to participate in disrupting metamemory functioning in alcoholics. Compromised FOK performance might result from disturbance of the switching mechanism between brain networks serving self-referential processes (i.e., DMN network) and networks serving externally-driven activities like memory monitoring (i.e., fronto-parietal network). Thus, compromise in insular network coupling could be a neural mechanism underlying anosognosia for subtle mnemonic impairment in nonamnesic alcoholism.

Cortical Networks Involved in Memory for Temporal Order

We examined the neurobiological basis of temporal resetting, an aspect of temporal order memory, using a version of the delayed-match-to-multiple-sample task. While in an fMRI scanner, participants evaluated whether an item was novel or whether it had appeared before or after a reset event that signified the start of a new block of trials. Participants responded "old" to items that were repeated within the current block and "new" to both novel items and items that had last appeared before the reset event (pseudonew items). Medial-temporal, prefrontal, and occipital regions responded to absolute novelty of the stimulus-they differentiated between novel items and previously seen items, but not between old and pseudonew items. Activation for pseudonew items in the frontopolar and parietal regions, in contrast, was intermediate between old and new items. The posterior cingulate cortex extending to precuneus was the only region that showed complete temporal resetting, and its activation reflected whether an item was new or old according to the task instructions regardless of its familiarity. There was also a significant Condition (old/pseudonew) × Familiarity (second/third presentations) interaction effect on behavioral and neural measures. For pseudonew items, greater familiarity decreased response accuracy, increased RTs, increased ACC activation, and increased functional connectivity between ACC and the left frontal pole. The reverse was observed for old items. On the basis of these results, we propose a theoretical framework in which temporal resetting relies on an episodic retrieval network that is modulated by cognitive control and conflict resolution.

The Importance of Metamemory Functioning to the Pathogenesis of Psychosis

Many studies up to date have implied that biases in the metacognition of memory, so called metamemory, contribute to the development and maintenance of positive symptoms in schizophrenia. However, no study exists which has longitudinally followed patients experiencing positive symptoms. The present article therefore reviews cross-sectional studies on retrospective metamemory abilities in participants within different stages of a schizophrenia spectrum disorder, with heterogeneous symptom severities, creating a pseudo-longitudinal overview. Summarized, a deterioration of these abilities correlating with psychosis development can be inferred. The reviewed publications indicate that metamemory biases can already be found in patients with an at-risk mental state for psychosis (ARMS). Patients in their first episode of psychosis (FEP) seem to be more severely impaired than ARMS-patients but similarly affected compared to chronic patients. The contribution of these biases to the pathogenesis of psychosis is discussed, giving consideration to relations with other cognitive- and metacognitive functions, neurochemical processes and neural correlates. It is hypothesized that the biases represent early cognitive markers of the beginning and persisting psychotic state. An early treatment program could help patients to ameliorate the general course of illness or even to prevent the risk of a transition to psychosis.