Biology subjects

Verrel, J.

Publications and source records attributed to Verrel, J..

3 recordsLinked to original sources

bioRxiv2022

Motor outcomes congruent with intentions may sharpen metacognitive representations

We can monitor our intentional movements, in order to describe how we move our bodies. But it is unclear which information this metacognitive monitoring relies on. For example, when throwing a ball to hit a target, we might use the visual information about how the ball flew to metacognitively assess our performance. Alternatively, we might disregard the ball trajectory -- given that it is not directly relevant to our goal -- and metacognitively assess our performance based solely on whether we reached the goal of hitting the target. In two experiments we aimed to distinguish between these two alternatives and asked whether the distal outcome of a goal-directed action (hitting or missing a target) informs the metacognitive representations of our own movements. Participants performed a semi-virtual task where they moved their arm to throw a virtual ball at a target. After each throw, participants discriminated which of two ball trajectories displayed on the screen corresponded to the flight path of their throw and then rated their confidence in this decision. The task included two conditions that differed on whether the distal outcome of the two trajectories shown matched (congruent) or differed (incongruent). Participants were significantly more accurate in discriminating between the two trajectories, and responded faster in the incongruent condition and, accordingly, were significantly more confident on these trials. Crucially, we found significant differences in metacognitive performance (measured as meta-d/d) between the two conditions only on successful trials, where the virtual ball had hit the target. These results indicate that participants successfully incorporated information about the outcome of the movement into both their discrimination and confidence responses. However, information about the outcome selectively sharpened the precision of confidence ratings only when the outcome of their throw matched their intention. We argue that these findings underline the separation between the different levels of information that may contribute to body monitoring, and we provide evidence that intentions might play a central role in metacognitive motor representations. HighlightsO_LIParticipants threw a virtual ball to hit a target C_LIO_LIFollowing their throw participants selected between two plausible trajectories C_LIO_LIOn half the trials, the two alternative trajectories differed in their distal outcome. C_LIO_LIDiscrimination and confidence were higher in trials with different outcome. C_LIO_LIMetacognitive performance was best in hit trials when the alternative missed. C_LI

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2021

Limited metacognitive access to one's own facial expressions

As humans we communicate important information through fine nuances in our facial expressions, but because conscious motor representations are noisy, we might not be able to report these fine but meaningful movements. Here we measured how much explicit metacognitive information young adults have about their own facial expressions. Participants imitated pictures of themselves making facial expressions and triggered a camera to take a picture of them while doing so. They then rated confidence (how well they thought they imitated each expression). We defined metacognitive access to facial expressions as the relationship between objective performance (how well the two pictures matched) and subjective confidence ratings. Metacognitive access to facial expressions was very poor when we considered all face features indiscriminately. Instead, machine learning analyses revealed that participants rated confidence based on idiosyncratic subsets of features. We conclude that metacognitive access to own facial expressions is partial, and surprisingly limited.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2020

Measuring Metacognition of Direct and Indirect Parameters of Voluntary Movement

We can make exquisitely precise movements without the apparent need for conscious monitoring. But can we monitor the low-level movement parameters when prompted? And what are the mechanisms that allow us to monitor our movements? To answer these questions, we designed a semi-virtual ball throwing task. On each trial, participants first threw a virtual ball by moving their arm (with or without visual feedback, or replayed from a previous trial) and then made a two-alternative forced choice on the resulting ball trajectory. They then rated their confidence in their decision. We measured metacognitive efficiency using meta-d/d and compared it between different informational domains of the first-order task (motor, visuomotor or visual information alone), as well as between two different versions of the task based on different parameters of the movement: proximal (position of the arm) or distal (resulting trajectory of the ball thrown). We found that participants were able to monitor their performance based on distal motor information as well as when proximal information was available. Their metacognitive efficiency was also equally high in conditions with different sources of information available. The analysis of correlations across participants revealed an unexpected result: while metacognitive efficiency correlated between informational domains (which would indicate domain-generality of metacognition), it did not correlate across the different parameters of movement. We discuss possible sources of this discrepancy and argue that specific first-order task demands may play a crucial role in our metacognitive ability and should be considered when making inferences about domain-generality based on correlations.

neuroscience↗