University of Dundee Metacognition PDF 2024

University of the Year for Student Experience (The Times/Sunday Times Good University Guide 2020) Metacognition Dr Chris Benwell 2024 dundee.ac.uk...

University of the Year for Student Experience (The Times/Sunday Times Good University Guide 2020) Metacognition Dr Chris Benwell 2024 dundee.ac.uk Page 1 Metacognition - Lecture Series 1. Introduction to metacognition 2. Measuring metacognition 3. Metacognition and psychopathology 4. Metacognition and belief structures 5. Neural correlates of metacognition 6. Evolution and metacognition in other species 7. Presentations/discussions 8. Metacognition and consciousness 9. Improving metacognition 10. The limits of self-knowledge dundee.ac.uk Page 2 Metacognition – Assessment Level 4 Coursework: 1 x 2500-word assignment due on Wednesday November 13th. We will dedicate part of the session in week 5 (beginning 14/10)) to preparation for the assignment. Level 4 Exam: 2 hour, on-campus exam at end of semester. Worth 60% of module grade. Level 5 Coursework: 2 x 2500-word assignments, each worth 50% of the module grade: 1st assignment due: Friday 15th November (12 noon) 2nd assignment due: Friday 29th November (12 noon) dundee.ac.uk Page 3 What to study? (1) Lecture notes (2) I will upload relevant papers for each lecture to the module page on MyDundee. (3) Any questions/concerns: [email protected] dundee.ac.uk Page 4 Metacognition and belief structures Do metacognitive sensitivity and bias contribute to (potentially maladaptive) patterns of information processing and beliefs in the general population? dundee.ac.uk Page 5 Metacognition and belief structures Do metacognitive sensitivity and bias contribute to (potentially maladaptive) patterns of information processing and beliefs in the general population? If so, what consequences might this have for individuals and for society? dundee.ac.uk Page 6 Metacognition and belief structures Confidence plays a key role in belief formation and updating. → Metacognition is required to reflect on how justified our beliefs are and how strongly we should maintain them (versus abandon/revise them). dundee.ac.uk Page 7 Metacognition and belief structures Confidence plays a key role in belief formation and updating. → Metacognition is required to reflect on how justified our beliefs are and how strongly we should maintain them (versus abandon/revise them). → Under- or over-confidence in beliefs may lead us to abandon or maintain them inappropriately. dundee.ac.uk Page 8 Metacognition and belief structures Confidence plays a key role in belief formation and updating. → Metacognition is required to reflect on how justified our beliefs are and how strongly we should maintain them (versus abandon/revise them). → Under- or over-confidence in beliefs may lead us to abandon or maintain them inappropriately. → Lack of metacognitive sensitivity regarding the fallibility of beliefs may contribute to false beliefs and belief polarization. dundee.ac.uk Page 9 Metacognition and belief structures Confidence plays a key role in belief formation and updating. → Metacognition is required to reflect on how justified our beliefs are and how strongly we should maintain them (versus abandon/revise them). → Under- or over-confidence in beliefs may lead us to abandon or maintain them inappropriately. → Lack of metacognitive sensitivity regarding the fallibility of beliefs may contribute to false beliefs and belief polarization. → This may be particularly relevant for polarizing societal issues such as climate change, abortion, vaccinations etc.. dundee.ac.uk Page 10 Metacognition and belief structures Rollwage et al., (2018) investigated how metacognition (as measured on a perceptual decision-making task) relates to different aspects of political beliefs. dundee.ac.uk Page 11 Metacognition and belief structures Rollwage et al., (2018) investigated how metacognition (as measured on a perceptual decision-making task) relates to different aspects of political beliefs. dundee.ac.uk Page 12 Metacognition and belief structures Rollwage et al., (2018) investigated how metacognition (as measured on a perceptual decision-making task) relates to different aspects of political beliefs. dundee.ac.uk Page 13 Metacognition and belief structures Dogmatic intolerance dundee.ac.uk Page 14 Metacognition and belief structures Dogmatic intolerance Authoritarianism dundee.ac.uk Page 15 Metacognition and belief structures Dogmatic intolerance Authoritarianism Political orientation (left-right) dundee.ac.uk Page 16 Metacognition and belief structures → Individuals holding radical beliefs display a specific impairment in metacognitive sensitivity. dundee.ac.uk Page 17 Metacognition and belief structures → Individuals holding radical beliefs display a specific impairment in metacognitive sensitivity. → Specifically, more radical participants displayed less insight into the correctness of their choices and reduced updating of their confidence when presented with post-decision evidence dundee.ac.uk Page 18 Metacognition and belief structures → Individuals holding radical beliefs display a specific impairment in metacognitive sensitivity. → Specifically, more radical participants displayed less insight into the correctness of their choices and reduced updating of their confidence when presented with post-decision evidence dundee.ac.uk Page 19 Metacognition and belief structures Schulz et al., (2020) investigated whether dogmatism (linked to radicalism) is associated with an altered tendency to seek information in cases of uncertainty. dundee.ac.uk Page 20 Metacognition and belief structures Schulz et al., (2020) investigated whether dogmatism (linked to radicalism) is associated with an altered tendency to seek information in cases of uncertainty. dundee.ac.uk Page 21 Metacognition and belief structures Schulz et al., (2020) investigated whether dogmatism (linked to radicalism) is associated with an altered tendency to seek information in cases of uncertainty. dundee.ac.uk Page 22 Metacognition and belief structures → Across 2 studies (n = 370 & n = 364), more dogmatic participants were less likely to seek out new information to refine initial perceptual decisions, leading to a reduction in overall accuracy despite similar initial decision performance dundee.ac.uk Page 23 Metacognition and belief structures → Dogmatic individuals seek out less information than moderates when they are uncertain. dundee.ac.uk Page 24  Metacognition and belief structures Mohr et al (unpublished) – Imposterism and dogmatism relate to confidence and information-seeking in opposite directions. dundee.ac.uk Page 25  Metacognition and belief structures Mohr et al (unpublished) – Imposterism and dogmatism relate to confidence and information-seeking in opposite directions. dundee.ac.uk Page 26  Metacognition and belief structures Mohr et al (unpublished) – Imposterism and dogmatism relate to confidence and information-seeking in opposite directions. dundee.ac.uk Page 27  Metacognition and belief structures Mohr et al (unpublished) – Imposterism and dogmatism relate to confidence and information-seeking in opposite directions. dundee.ac.uk Page 28 Metacognition and belief structures Rollwage et al, Schulz et al, and Mohr et al show how specific metacognitive signatures characterise radical/dogmatic belief structures which are related to political, scientific and religious debates. How might metacognitive distortions influence beliefs about specific real-world issues? dundee.ac.uk Page 29  Any questions? dundee.ac.uk Page 30 Metacognition and climate change beliefs Said et al., (2022) investigated whether level of metacognitive insight into belief veracity predicts polarization on controversial societal issues (nanotechnology and climate change) dundee.ac.uk Page 31 Metacognition and climate change beliefs Said et al., (2022) investigated whether level of metacognitive insight into belief veracity predicts polarization on controversial societal issues (nanotechnology and climate change) → If we know our beliefs are subjective and possibly incorrect, we are less likely to hold them so strongly. dundee.ac.uk Page 32 Metacognition and climate change beliefs Said et al., (2022) investigated whether level of metacognitive insight into belief veracity predicts polarization on controversial societal issues (nanotechnology and climate change) → If we know our beliefs are subjective and possibly incorrect, we are less likely to hold them so strongly. → Individuals with higher metacognitive sensitivity (measured as meta-d’) into the validity and fallibility of their own interpretations of the available evidence were less likely to polarize over the heavily contested topic of climate change, but not the less heavily contested topic of nanotechnology. dundee.ac.uk Page 33 Metacognition and climate change beliefs Said et al., (2022) investigated whether level of metacognitive insight into belief veracity predicts polarization on controversial societal issues (nanotechnology and climate change) → If we know our beliefs are subjective and possibly incorrect, we are less likely to hold them so strongly. → Individuals with higher metacognitive sensitivity (measured as meta-d’) into the validity and fallibility of their own interpretations of the available evidence were less likely to polarize over the heavily contested topic of climate change, but not the less heavily contested topic of nanotechnology. → Specifically, among citizens with lower metacognitive sensitivity, the proportion of polarizers over climate change was four times higher than among citizens with higher metacognitive sensitivity dundee.ac.uk Page 34 Metacognition and climate change beliefs Fischer et al., (2019) investigated how accurate German citizens (n = 509) were, and how much metacognitive sensitivity they possessed, in their climate change knowledge. dundee.ac.uk Page 35 Metacognition and climate change beliefs → The accuracy of climate change knowledge of citizens was lower than the accuracy of scientists. dundee.ac.uk Page 36 Metacognition and climate change beliefs → The accuracy of climate change knowledge of citizens was lower than the accuracy of scientists. → Particularly for false statements, citizens were mostly over-confident and considerably more biased than scientists. dundee.ac.uk Page 37 Metacognition and climate change beliefs → Metacognitive sensitivity for climate change knowledge was only ~50% what it could have been based on type-1 knowledge for citizens. dundee.ac.uk Page 38 Metacognition and climate change beliefs → Metacognitive sensitivity for climate change knowledge was only ~50% what it could have been based on type-1 knowledge for citizens. → In contrast, sensitivity was optimal for citizen’s general science knowledge and scientist’s climate change knowledge. dundee.ac.uk Page 39 Metacognition and climate change beliefs Tsakiris et al., (2021) investigated the role of metacognition in updating prior beliefs about climate change across the spectrum of climate change scepticism. dundee.ac.uk Page 40 Metacognition and climate change beliefs Tsakiris et al., (2021) investigated the role of metacognition in updating prior beliefs about climate change across the spectrum of climate change scepticism. → Across 2 studies, sceptics were less likely to update their beliefs in response to news stories about climate change. dundee.ac.uk Page 41 Metacognition and climate change beliefs Tsakiris et al., (2021) investigated the role of metacognition in updating prior beliefs about climate change across the spectrum of climate change scepticism. → Both metacognitive sensitivity and bias were independently associated with climate change scepticism and the likelihood of updating beliefs. dundee.ac.uk Page 42 Metacognition and belief structures In a large preregistered study (N = 3249), Light et al., (2022) investigated knowledge and knowledge confidence about seven controversial issues on which there is a substantial scientific consensus: → Climate change → GM foods → Nuclear power → Vaccination → Homeopathic medicine → The Big Bang → Evolution → COVID-19 dundee.ac.uk Page 43 Metacognition and belief structures → Overall, across all issues, as opposition to the scientific consensus grew, objective knowledge decreased whereas confidence increased. dundee.ac.uk Page 44 Metacognition and belief structures → Overall, across all issues, as opposition to the scientific consensus grew, objective knowledge decreased whereas confidence increased. → Hence, opposition to the consensus was related to knowledge overconfidence. dundee.ac.uk Page 45 Metacognition and belief structures → Relationships differed somewhat across issues but broadly followed the same pattern. → Interestingly, climate change was one of the issues for which the relationship was not observed. dundee.ac.uk Page 46 Metacognition and belief structures → To test whether the participants beliefs were meaningfully linked to their behaviour, the authors gave them the chance to bet on whether their knowledge was likely to be higher than the average of the sample. → The results showed that participants were willing to bet on their ability to perform well on a test of their knowledge. As opposition to the consensus increased, participants were more likely to bet but less likely to score above average on the objective knowledge questions. As a consequence, more extreme opponents earned less. dundee.ac.uk Page 47 Metacognition and belief structures Specific patterns of metacognition are related to belief structures in the general population. → Lack of metacognitive sensitivity and over-confidence may contribute to disagreements in society, the spread of mis-information and difficulties reconciling opinions on controversial topics. → This suggests that public information campaigns aimed at improving objective knowledge alone may not be sufficient to make progress towards reaching consensus. dundee.ac.uk Page 48 dundee.ac.uk  What other real-world issues might metacognition influence beliefs in? How could authorities incorporate this information to improve how they communicate information to the public? dundee.ac.uk Page 50  Next week Neural correlates of metacognition dundee.ac.uk Page 51 What to study? References Fischer, H., Amelung, D., & Said, N. (2019). The accuracy of German citizens’ confidence in their climate change knowledge. Nature Climate Change, 9(10), 776-780. Light, N., Fernbach, P. M., Rabb, N., Geana, M. V., & Sloman, S. A. (2022). Knowledge overconfidence is associated with anti-consensus views on controversial scientific issues. Science advances, 8(29), eabo0038. Rollwage, M., Dolan, R. J., & Fleming, S. M. (2018). Metacognitive failure as a feature of those holding radical beliefs. Current Biology, 28(24), 4014-4021. Said, N., Fischer, H., & Anders, G. (2022). Contested science: Individuals with higher metacognitive insight into interpretation of evidence are less likely to polarize. Psychonomic bulletin & review, 29(2), 668-680. Schulz, L., Rollwage, M., Dolan, R. J., & Fleming, S. M. (2020). Dogmatism manifests in lowered information search under uncertainty. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 117(49), 31527-31534. Tsakiris, M., Vehar, N., Fleming, S., De Beukelaer, S., & Rollwage, M. (2021). Changing minds about climate change: a pervasive role for domain-general metacognition. PsyArxiv. dundee.ac.uk Page 52