The Cognitive Neuroscience of Metacognition

Metacognition is the capacity to reflect upon and evaluate cognition and behaviour. Long of interest to philosophers and psychologists, metacognition has recently become the target of research in the cognitive neurosciences. By combining brain imaging, computational modeling, neuropsychology and insights from psychiatry, the present book offers a picture of the metacognitive functions of the brain.

Chapters cover the definition and measurement of metacognition in humans and non-human animals, the computational underpinnings of metacognitive judgments, the cognitive neuroscience of self-monitoring ranging from confidence to error-monitoring, and neuropsychiatric studies of disorders of metacognition.

This book provides an invaluable overview of a rapidly emerging and important field within cognitive neuroscience.

Inhalt
Metacognitive neuroscience: an introduction.- Quantifying human metacognition for the neurosciences.- Signal detection theory analysis of type 1 and type 2 data: meta-d', response-specific meta-d' and the unequal variance SDT model.- The highs and lows of theoretical interpretation in animal-metacognition research.- A computational framework for the study of confidence across species.- Shared mechanisms for confidence judgments and error detection in human decision making.- Metacognition and confidence in value-based choice.- What failure in collective decision-making tells us about metacognition.- Studying metacognitive processes at the single-neuron level.- The neural basis of metacognitive accuracy.- The cognitive neuroscience of metamemory monitoring: understanding metamemory processes, subjective levels expressed and metacognitive accuracy.- Metacognitive facilitation of spontaneous thought processes: When metacognition helps the wandering mind find its way.- What is the human sense of agency and is it metacognitive? Failures of metacognition and lack of insight in neuropsychiatric disorders.- Judgments of agency in schizophrenia: An impairment in autonoetic metacognition.- Metacognition in Alzheimer's disease.