Domain-specific and domain-general processes underlying metacognitive judgments

Metacognition and self-awareness are commonly assumed to operate as global capacities. However, there have been few attempts to test this assumption across multiple cognitive domains and metacognitive evaluations. Here, we assessed the covariance between “online” metacognitive processes, as measured by decision confidence judgments in the domains of perception and memory, and error awareness in the domain of attention to action. Previous research investigating metacognition across task domains have not matched stimulus characteristics across tasks raising the possibility that any differences in metacognitive accuracy may be influenced by local task properties. The current experiment measured metacognition in perceptual, memorial and attention tasks that were closely matched for stimulus characteristics. We found that metacognitive accuracy across the three tasks was dissociated suggesting that domain specific networks support an individual’s capacity for accurate metacognition. This finding was independent of objective performance, which was controlled using a staircase procedure. However, response times for metacognitive judgments and error awareness were associated suggesting that shared mechanisms determining how these meta-level evaluations unfold in time may underlie these different types of decision. In addition, the relationship between these laboratory measures of metacognition and reports of everyday functioning from participants and their significant others (informants) was investigated. We found that informant reports, but not self reports, predicted metacognitive accuracy on the perceptual task and participants who underreported cognitive difficulties relative to their informants also showed poorer metacognitive accuracy on the perceptual task. These results are discussed in the context of models of metacognitive regulation and neuropsychological evidence for dissociable metacognitive systems. The potential for the refinement of metacognitive assessment in clinical populations is also discussed.     

How left inferior frontal cortex participates in syntactic processing: Evidence from aphasia

We report on three experiments that provide a real-time processing perspective on the poor comprehension of Broca’s aphasic patients for non-canonically structured sentences. In the first experiment we presented sentences (via a Cross Modal Lexical Priming (CMLP) paradigm) to Broca’s patients at a normal rate of speech. Unlike the pattern found with unimpaired control participants, we observed a general slowing of lexical activation and a concomitant delay in the formation of syntactic dependencies involving “moved” constituents and empty elements. Our second experiment presented these same sentences at a slower rate of speech. In this circumstance, Broca’s patients formed syntactic dependencies as soon as they were structurally licensed (again, a different pattern from that demonstrated by the unimpaired control group). The third experiment used a sentence-picture matching paradigm to chart Broca’s comprehension for non-canonically structured sentences (presented at both normal and slow rates). Here we observed significantly better scores in the slow rate condition. We discuss these findings in terms of the functional commitment of the left anterior cortical region implicated in Broca’s aphasia and conclude that this region is crucially involved in the formation of syntactically-governed dependency relations, not because it supports knowledge of syntactic dependencies, but rather because it supports the real-time implementation of these specific representations by sustaining, at the least, a lexical activation rise-time parameter.     

A social neuroscience perspective on adolescent risk-taking

This article proposes a framework for theory and research on risk-taking that is informed by developmental neuroscience. Two fundamental questions motivate this review. First, why does risk-taking increase between childhood and adolescence? Second, why does risk-taking decline between adolescence and adulthood? Risk-taking increases between childhood and adolescence as a result of changes around the time of puberty in the brain’s socio-emotional system leading to increased reward-seeking, especially in the presence of peers, fueled mainly by a dramatic remodeling of the brain’s dopaminergic system. Risk-taking declines between adolescence and adulthood because of changes in the brain’s cognitive control system—changes which improve individuals’ capacity for self-regulation. These changes occur across adolescence and young adulthood and are seen in structural and functional changes within the prefrontal cortex and its connections to other brain regions. The differing timetables of these changes make mid-adolescence a time of heightened vulnerability to risky and reckless behavior.     

Coherence and recurrency: maintenance,control and integration in working memory

Working memory (WM), including a ‘central executive’, is used to guide behavior by internal goals or intentions. We suggest that WM is best described as a set of three interdependent functions which are implemented in the prefrontal cortex (PFC). These functions are maintenance, control of attention and integration. A model for the maintenance function is presented, and we will argue that this model can be extended to incorporate the other functions as well. Maintenance is the capacity to briefly maintain information in the absence of corresponding input, and even in the face of distracting information. We will argue that maintenance is based on recurrent loops between PFC and posterior parts of the brain, and probably within PFC as well. In these loops information can be held temporarily in an active form. We show that a model based on these structural ideas is capable of maintaining a limited number of neural patterns. Not the size, but the coherence of patterns (i.e., a chunking principle based on synchronous firing of interconnected cell assemblies) determines the maintenance capacity. A mechanism that optimizes coherent pattern segregation, also poses a limit to the number of assemblies (about four) that can concurrently reverberate. Top-down attentional control (in perception, action and memory retrieval) can be modelled by the modulation and re-entry of top-down information to posterior parts of the brain. Hierarchically organized modules in PFC create the possibility for information integration. We argue that large-scale multimodal integration of information creates an ‘episodic buffer’, and may even suffice for implementing a central executive.     

Living on the Margins of Democratic Representation: Socially Connected Community Responsibility as Civic Engagement in an Unincorporated Area

We examine the civic engagement processes and practices among Viva Live Oak! photovoice project participants residing in an unincorporated area with limited local democratic representation and institutional resources. Eight individual interviews and thirty‐one group photovoice meetings were conducted, audio recorded, transcribed, and analyzed. We describe how social structures of unincorporation shaped community life, and how this unique context informed participants’ civic engagement. We argue for a conceptualization of civic engagement that centers a social connection model of community responsibility, to make legible the social, relational, and civic actions of unincorporated area residents.     

Regulation of brain activity in the fusiform face and parahippocampal place areas in 7–11-year-old children

Developmental studies have demonstrated that cognitive processes such as attention, suppression of interference and memory develop throughout childhood and adolescence. However, little is currently known about the development of top-down control mechanisms and their influence on cognitive performance. In the present study, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging to investigate modulation of activity in the ventral visual cortex in healthy 7–11-year-old children and young adults. The participants performed tasks that required attention to either face (Fs task) or scene (Sf task) images while trying to ignore distracting scene or face images, respectively. A face-selective area in the fusiform gyrus (fusiform face area, FFA) and an area responding preferentially to scene images in the parahippocampal gyrus (parahippocampal place area, PPA) were defined using functional localizers. Children responded slower and less accurately in the tasks than adults. In children, the right FFA was less selective to face images and regulation of activity between the Fs and Sf tasks was weaker compared to adults. In the PPA, selectivity to scenes and regulation of activity, there according to the task demands were comparable between children and adults. During the tasks, children activated prefrontal cortical areas including the middle (MFG) and superior (SFG) frontal gyrus more than adults. Functional connectivity between the right FFA and left MFG was stronger in adults than children in the Fs task. Children, on the other hand, had stronger functional connectivity than adults in the Sf task between the right FFA and right PPA and between right MFG and medial SFG. There were no group differences in the functional connectivity between the PPA and the prefrontal cortex (PFC). Together the results suggest that, in 7–11-year-old children, the FFA is still immature, whereas the selectivity to scenes and regulation of activity in the PPA is comparable to adults. The results also indicated functional immaturity of the PFC in children compared to adults and weaker connectivity between the PFC and the rFFA, explaining the weaker regulation of activity in the rFFA between the Fs and Sf tasks.     

Organisation of executive functions: Hemispheric asymmetries

This address provides a review of evidence for a deconstruction of executive functions, the set of cognitive operations which allow goal-directed behaviour. The underlying working hypothesis is that some complementary and computationally diverse executive functions are dissociable not only functionally but also temporally and anatomically, along the left-right axis of prefrontal cortex and related neural networks. In particular, criterion setting—the capacity to flexibly set up and select task rules—is more left-lateralised; monitoring—the process of continuously evaluating the internal or external contingencies to optimise behaviour—is more right-lateralised; finally, superior medial prefrontal regions, including dorsal anterior cingulate cortex, play a role in energising weakly activated but relevant processes. Several lines of empirical evidence, including neuroimaging and neuropsychological findings, are presented to support this tripartite model of executive functions. Evidence which is difficult to explain with this model and some future directions are also discussed.     

Self-esteem and higher-order factors of personality: A reply to Simsek

Simsek (2012) argued that earlier research by Erdle and colleagues on the relationship between self-esteem and higher-order factors of personality used “poor statistical methodology”, that “their results may be untenable”, and that the results of his “high-level data analysis” are “the first to show the importance of self-esteem in the differentiation between stability and plasticity”. In this rejoinder, it is argued that the statistical methodology used by Erdle and colleagues demonstrated the effect of controlling self-esteem on the relationship between stability and plasticity earlier and more accurately than that used by Simsek (2012). Moreover, it is argued that self-esteem might not be a biasing factor, but instead might be a theoretically expected substantive correlate of the Big Five and of higher-order factors of personality. Finally, it is argued that a hierarchical structure of personality, with a general factor of personality (GFP) at the apex, might have a neurological basis in the activity of the prefrontal cortices.     

Cerebellum and processing of negative facial emotions: Cerebellar transcranial DC stimulation specifically enhances the emotional recognition of facial anger and sadness

Some evidence suggests that the cerebellum participates in the complex network processing emotional facial expression. To evaluate the role of the cerebellum in recognising facial expressions we delivered transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) over the cerebellum and prefrontal cortex. A facial emotion recognition task was administered to 21 healthy subjects before and after cerebellar tDCS; we also tested subjects with a visual attention task and a visual analogue scale (VAS) for mood. Anodal and cathodal cerebellar tDCS both significantly enhanced sensory processing in response to negative facial expressions (anodal tDCS, p=.0021; cathodal tDCS, p=.018), but left positive emotion and neutral facial expressions unchanged (p>.05). tDCS over the right prefrontal cortex left facial expressions of both negative and positive emotion unchanged. These findings suggest that the cerebellum is specifically involved in processing facial expressions of negative emotion.     

A Developmental Investigation of Prospective Memory: Effects of Interruption

The effects of interrupting an event-based prospective memory (PM) task and its associated ongoing task were compared for two groups of children: 8- to 9-year-olds (n?=?35) and 12- to 13-year-olds (n?=?28). Additionally, PM performance was examined as a function of attainment on a battery of tests of executive functioning (viz., Controlled Oral Word Association Test, Letter Number Sequencing Test, Stroop Color and Word Test, and Trail Making Test). A significant main effect of age indicated that the older children correctly carried out intended actions more often than the younger children. Consistent with the prefrontal model of PM, interruption had no impact on PM accuracy in the older group but produced reliable decrements to the accuracy of the younger group. Whereas IQ showed no association with PM performance, reliable relations between PM skills and aspects of their executive functioning were found.