Dataset Information

Distinct neural contributions to metacognition for detecting, but not discriminating visual stimuli.

ABSTRACT: Being confident in whether a stimulus is present or absent (a detection judgment) is qualitatively distinct from being confident in the identity of that stimulus (a discrimination judgment). In particular, in detection, evidence can only be available for the presence, not the absence, of a target object. This asymmetry suggests that higher-order cognitive and neural processes may be required for confidence in detection, and more specifically, in judgments about absence. In a within-subject, pre-registered and performance-matched fMRI design, we observed quadratic confidence effects in frontopolar cortex for detection but not discrimination. Furthermore, in the right temporoparietal junction, confidence effects were enhanced for judgments of target absence compared to judgments of target presence. We interpret these findings as reflecting qualitative differences between a neural basis for metacognitive evaluation of detection and discrimination, potentially in line with counterfactual or higher-order models of confidence formation in detection.

SUBMITTER: Mazor M

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7170652 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

ACCESS DATA

Publications

Distinct neural contributions to metacognition for detecting, but not discriminating visual stimuli.

Mazor Matan M Friston Karl J KJ Fleming Stephen M SM

eLife 20200420

Being confident in whether a stimulus is present or absent (a detection judgment) is qualitatively distinct from being confident in the identity of that stimulus (a discrimination judgment). In particular, in detection, evidence can only be available for the presence, not the absence, of a target object. This asymmetry suggests that higher-order cognitive and neural processes may be required for confidence in detection, and more specifically, in judgments about absence. In a within-subject, pre- ...[more]

PMID: 32310086

Similar Datasets

Project description:Contextual information triggers predictions about the content ("what") of environmental stimuli to update an internal generative model of the surrounding world. However, visual information dynamically changes across time, and temporal predictability ("when") may influence the impact of internal predictions on visual processing. In this magnetoencephalography (MEG) study, we investigated how processing feature specific information ("what") is affected by temporal predictability ("when"). Participants (N = 16) were presented with four consecutive Gabor patches (entrainers) with constant spatial frequency but with variable orientation and temporal onset. A fifth target Gabor was presented after a longer delay and with higher or lower spatial frequency that participants had to judge. We compared the neural responses to entrainers where the Gabor orientation could, or could not be temporally predicted along the entrainer sequence, and with inter-entrainer timing that was constant (predictable), or variable (unpredictable). We observed suppression of evoked neural responses in the visual cortex for predictable stimuli. Interestingly, we found that temporal uncertainty increased expectation suppression. This suggests that in temporally uncertain scenarios the neurocognitive system invests less resources in integrating bottom-up information. Multivariate pattern analysis showed that predictable visual features could be decoded from neural responses. Temporal uncertainty did not affect decoding accuracy for early visual responses, with the feature specificity of early visual neural activity preserved across conditions. However, decoding accuracy was less sustained over time for temporally jittered than for isochronous predictable visual stimuli. These findings converge to suggest that the cognitive system processes visual features of temporally predictable stimuli in higher detail, while processing temporally uncertain stimuli may rely more heavily on abstract internal expectations.

Dataset Information

Distinct neural contributions to metacognition for detecting, but not discriminating visual stimuli.

Publications

Distinct neural contributions to metacognition for detecting, but not discriminating visual stimuli.

Similar Datasets

OmicsDI is part of the ELIXIR infrastructure

Tweets