Review Of Lectures Learnt PDF

Lecture 1: Introduction to Metacognition - **John Flavell,** *1979***:** "knowledge regulation, and experiences" -- *knowing about knowing"* - **knowledge:** person, task and strategy variables - **regulation:** adjusting cognitive processes to improve learning -...

Lecture 1: Introduction to Metacognition - **John Flavell,** *1979***:** "knowledge regulation, and experiences" -- *knowing about knowing"* - **knowledge:** person, task and strategy variables - **regulation:** adjusting cognitive processes to improve learning - **experiences:** feelings of knowing/confidence/confusion - **Miscalibration:** inaccuracies in self-assessments; over/under confidence - **Zell et al.***, 2020:* Better-than average; - *cognitive bias* - Critiques*:* individuality; contextual/social factors - **Dunning-Kruger,** *2011:* lower competence = over-estimate ability - **Critiques:** - "Regression to mean"; closer to average - "Bayesian Shrinkage"; confidence reflect performance - **Rebuttal to critiques**: - ***Jansen et al**, 2021*:  lowest performers on objective tasks do indeed overestimate their performance compared to those who perform better. Lecture 2: Measuring metacognition - **Main method: Questionnaires** - Critiques: self-report inconsistent; difficulty measuring objectively; internal/subjective process - **Basic Mechanism:** - Type-1: actual performance - Type-2: confidence on task - **Fleming & Lau,** *2014:* MC accuracy - **Types of second-order reports:** 1. Judgment of learning 2. Feeling of knowing 3. Confidence 4. Error monitoring 5. Post-decision wagers - **Metacognitive \_\_\_;** - Bias = how overconfident they are - Sensitivity = how well can monitor actions/mistakes - **SDT:** - How likely someone to detect signal/stimulus vs whether signal was actually present - T1: presence of stimulus vs behaviour shown - T2: behavioural response vs second-order report of confidence - How accurate judgement is - **Meta'd:** separates bias + sensitivity - Assessing confidence accuracy vs task performance to measure MC efficiency - **Why control 1^st^ order:** - separate effects of actual performance on task vs how accurately people asses their own performance - **Critiques of Meta-d'**: Limited to 2AFC tasks; poor test-retest reliability - **MIT:** - Quantifies amount of info about decision accuracy; can be found in corresponding confidence ratings - Non-parametric, does not impose assumptions - **Guggenmos,** *2022: "*ReMeta:" - New approach: Metacognitive measures independent of T1 performance on tasks Lecture 3: metacognition & psychopathology - **Domains of MC deficits**: - Lack of awareness: **1.** person has disorder, **2.** Specific symptoms - **3.** Impaired self-evaluation - **Anosognosia:** unaware of condition - **Lack of insight** - **David,** *2012* : "schizophrenia": Hinder treatment compliance, amplify distress, reinforce symptoms - Mixed blessing: higher insight = can lead to depression - **Alloy + Abramson,** *1988:* **Depressive realism** - Depressed individuals -- more realistic inferences about the world - **Beck,** *1967:* **Negativity hypothesis:** - Depressed individuals -- evaluate negativity excessively - **Abnormalities of confidence** - impaired self-evaluation of cognitive processes, potentially underlying psychiatric symptoms; assessed by overall confidence vs. precision metrics - e.g.: discrimination, metacognitive sensitivity, and efficiency. - **Hoven**, *2019:* - Schizo = overconfidence; Depression = underconfidence - **Transdiagnostic psychiatry:** - Cognitive/affective/neurobiological processes underlying behaviour, linking them to symptom dimensions rather than traditional DSM categories, aiming to refine clinical classifications. - **Rouault,** *2018***:** - 2 studies (≈1,000 participants) linked symptoms to metacognition. Social anxiety, GAD, and depression reduced confidence, suggesting 3 dimensions: anxious-depression, compulsive thought/behaviour, and social withdrawal. - **Benwell,** *2022:* - (≈1,000 participants) = anxious-depression, compulsivity, and social withdrawal, with anxious-depression best supported. Confidence accuracy was higher in anxious-depression and compulsivity, but no group showed significant metacognitive efficiency. Lecture 4: Metacognition & belief structures - **Belief formation + Maintenance:** - MC guides belief formation through shaping confidence + reflection - Poor sensitivity = false beliefs/polarisation - **Polarisation** - **"Knowledge overconfidence"** - Strengthen existing beliefs in response to conflicting evidence - **Fischer,** *2019*: "**German knowledge; Climate change"** - Overestimated confidence judgements - **Light,** *2022*: **Knowledge overconfidence/anti-consensus** - 7 controversial issues - Opposition to scientific consensus; tied to overconfidence - More willing to bet knowledge but likelier to score below average - **Rollwage,** *2018*: "**Political beliefs"** - **Radical beliefs** = impaired MC sensitivity - less insight into judgment accuracy - less likely to adjusting confidence after receiving new evidence - **Said,** *2022*: MC insight = susceptibility to polarisation - Higher insight = less likely to polarise when interpreting evidence on issues (vice versa for poorer insight) - **Schulz,** *2020*: "**Dogmatism"** - 7-stage paradigm; dogmatic participants = sought less info when uncertain - Reduced overall accuracy despite similar initial decision performance to others Lecture 6: Evolution of Metacognition in other species - **Intrapersonal advantages of MC:** - Recognition of errors - Identifying areas of self-improvement - Detection of lapses in attention - **Suprapersonal:** extending beyond individuals own mind/self, interactions with others: - Gain trust - Calibrate team contributions through confidence - Broadcasting - **Evolution of MC:** - **Genetic** - **Individual learning** - **Cultural learning** - **Heyes,** *2018*: **3 Cultural Origins Hypothesis** - **Cultural evolution dominant role in MC development** - Cultural: - "Learning" = receiver learns from sender through shared knowledge - "Selection" = Operating on variants passed through generations of learners - 3 components: - Discrimination = learning to dissociate different types of metacognitive input - Interpretation = learning significance of meta states in different contexts - Broadcasting = how to broadcast confidence from other members of social groups verbally + non - **Education to cultural learning** - ToM differences; parental talk about mental states - "Are you sure?"/ "Do you think you can do that?" - MC training + meditation practices (Buddhism) improve learning/MC sensitivity - **Cultural variation** - **Mann**, *1998*; Westerners = higher confidence than east Asians - **Van der Plas**, *2022*: Chinese = higher perceptual insight than those from London - Further research needed in regard to gene contribution in bias/sensitivity - **3 main methods in non-humans:** 1. Opt-out 2. Post-decision wagering 3. Prospective task choice - **Smith,** *2004*: **Animals + Uncertainty** - Opted out of difficult tasks - Uncertainty through vocalisations - Opt-out study critique: **Clever Hans** - Following cue-based rules; advanced social awareness **not** metacognition - **Private** metacognition - Introspective processes in which we internally reflect own thoughts/behaviours - Drives ruled out which allow conclusion of private metacognition in animal behaviour: - Response competition - Environmental cue associations - Behavioural cue associations **[Lecture 9: Improving MC]** - **Kopcanova,** *2023*: **Stability of metacognition** - 25P = highly correlated results across 2 sessions; stable trait in specific traits - 3 main **factors to improve:** - **Baird,** *2014*: **Meditation** - 2 week "**Samatha**\" meditation training improved metacognitive efficiency for memory; **not** for perceptual performance. - **Hauser,** *2017*: **Drugs** - Noradrenergic blockade (propranolol) increased metacognitive sensitivity, while dopaminergic blockade (amisulpride) had no effect. - The impact was specific to metacognition, not first-order perceptual performance. - **Carpenter,** *2019*: **Training** - Training improved sensitivity+bias, even for untrained memory tasks; 1^st^ order performance remained unchanged - Critiques: Post-training incentives + simpler confidence scale may have boosted confidence - **Rouy,** *2022*: **Training improved** - Controlled scale inconsistencies + incentive differences - No significant improvement between pre- and post- trials - **MCT**: - Focuses improving insight - Attention to beliefs - **Positive**: make people think strategies like overthinking or constantly monitoring threats are helpful, which keeps them stuck in unproductive cycles. - **Negative**: make people feel like their thoughts and emotions are uncontrollable or overly important, increasing anxiety and distress. - Mental health issues stem from harmful coping strategies - Worry, avoidance, worsen+ prolong negative emotions over time - 3 main aims: -  Identify dysfunctional strategies. - Challenge negative metacognitive beliefs about the uncontrollability and significance of psychiatric symptoms. - Challenge metacognitive beliefs about the need to ruminate and engage in threat monitoring as a means of coping. - **2 techniques of MCT:** - ATT - Detached Mindfulness - **Normann + Marina,** *2018*: **MCT efficacy** - review of 25 studies found MCT effective for treating psychological disorders, with some evidence suggesting it may outperform other therapies. This supports MCT\'s potential to reshape psychotherapy and advance clinical psychology. - Open questions: - → Many clinical trials to date have had small sample sizes. Larger trials needed to accurately estimate effect sizes. - → Most studies have focussed on Depression or Generalised Anxiety Disorder (GAD). Generalisation to other disorders remains uncertain. - → Studies needed in more diverse demographic groups including children, - adolescents, older adults and individuals with severe mental illness. Lecture 10: Limits of self-knowledge - How much accessibility of our mental lives do we have? - **Descartes** - **Schelling;** Unconscious mind - **Freud: Psychoanalytic Theory** - Defence mechansism block us from unconscious - Ego, superego, id -- inevitable inner conflict - **Jung,** *1950s***: Split of the unconscious** - **Personal:** similar to Freud, forgotten info/primitive drives - **Collectiveness:** Mental patterns shared with other humans - **Collective:** imprinted innate traits of human mind - **Prepared conditioning:** - Historic predisposed certain stimuli a threat (heights, snakes) - **Unconscious inference:** - Reflex-like mechanisms of perceptual impressions - **Universal grammar:** - Constraint whether sentences correctly formed - **Differences between Jung + Freud** - **Nature of libido:** - **J:** Psychic energy motivating behaviours vs. **F:** psychic energy to sexual gratification - **Nature of unconscious** - **J:** Repressed memories of individual/ancestral past vs. **F:** repressed desires to individual - **Cause of behaviour:** - **J:** past experience addition to future aspiration vs. **F:** past experience, esp. childhood - **Unconscious in modern science** - Different terminologies used to understand: - **Procedural** - **Automatic** **Processing** - Resource-efficient (reading) - **Implicit** **biases** - Unconscious judgments - **Visual system & the unconscious** - V1 neurons respond to stimuli based on their spatial and retinal locations, even if this information isn\'t consciously perceived. Stimuli outside awareness still show neural activity similar to that of consciously perceived objects. - **Benefits to having limits of the unconscious:** - Positivity/optimism boosting health; aid in difficult situations - Unjustified confidence may be helpful - Self-deception aids in deceiving others - Greater self-knowledge may offer no evolutionary advantage **Lecture 1: Introduction to Metacognition** 1. How do the concepts of knowledge, regulation, and experiences contribute to the understanding and development of metacognition, and what role do miscalibrations like overconfidence play in this process? 2. Evaluate the critiques and rebuttals of the Dunning-Kruger effect. How do these debates enhance our understanding of metacognitive self-assessment? **Lecture 2: Measuring Metacognition** 1. Analyze the challenges and limitations of measuring metacognition through self-report questionnaires. How do Type-1 and Type-2 processes contribute to a more nuanced measurement framework? 2. Compare and contrast the methods of assessing metacognitive accuracy and sensitivity (e.g., meta-d', MIT) with traditional first-order performance measurements. What are the implications for research reliability and application? **Lecture 3: Metacognition and Psychopathology** 1. Discuss the role of metacognitive deficits in psychopathology. How do lack of insight and anosognosia influence treatment outcomes, and what are the broader implications for mental health care? 2. Analyze the concept of \"depressive realism\" in the context of metacognition. How does it challenge or complement traditional views of metacognition in psychiatric conditions? **Lecture 4: Metacognition and Belief Structures** 1. How does metacognitive sensitivity influence belief formation and resistance to polarization? Use examples from studies on political beliefs and scientific controversies to support your argument. 2. Evaluate the relationship between metacognition and dogmatism. How do individual differences in metacognitive insight impact the maintenance or adjustment of beliefs? **Lecture 6: Evolution of Metacognition in Other Species** 1. Explore the intrapersonal and suprapersonal advantages of metacognition. How do these benefits contribute to the evolutionary development of metacognition in humans and other species? 2. Critically assess the methods used to study metacognition in non-human animals. How do debates like the "Clever Hans" critique shape interpretations of animal behavior as evidence of metacognition? **Lecture 9: Improving Metacognition** 1. Compare the effectiveness of meditation, pharmacological interventions, and training programs in improving metacognitive sensitivity and efficiency. What factors contribute to their success or limitations? 2. How does Metacognitive Therapy (MCT) differ from traditional psychotherapy approaches? Discuss its efficacy and potential limitations in treating psychological disorders. **Lecture 10: Limits of Self-Knowledge** 1. Discuss the implications of unconscious processes (as described by Freud, Jung, and modern science) for our understanding of self-knowledge. How do these theories differ in explaining human behavior? 2. Evaluate the benefits and limitations of having restricted access to unconscious processes. How do these boundaries impact human cognition, behavior, and evolution?