Article 6: Relating introspective accuracy to individual differences in brain structure.

Question 1

Tasks for article 6’s study about metacognitive ability

Answer 1

Task 1: The perceptual response indicated whether the first or the second temporal interval contain the higher-contrast Gabor patch, which could appear in one of six locations.

Task 2: Confidence ratings were made using a one to six scale, with participants encouraged to use the whole scale from one = low confidence and six = high confidence.

Question 2

Type 1 vs type 2 performance in article 6

Answer 2

• Subjects are matched on type 1 performance (performance on Gabor task).
• However subjects differ a lot in their introspective accuracy (type 2)

Question 3

Results article 6 (metacognitive ability)

Answer 3

Gray matter effects:
Right anterior PFC correlates with metacognitive accuracy, but not with d’ (task performance on the Gabor task).
Consistent with the prefrontal gray matter volume playing a causal role in metacognition, patients with lesions to anterior PFC show deficits in subjective reports compared with controls.

White matter effects:
Anterior corpus callosum correlates with metacognitive accuracy.

Question 4

Conclusion article 6 (metacognitive ability)

Answer 4

The findings suggest a central role for anterior and dorsolateral PFC in metacognitive sensitivity.