Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in
Book cover

The Cognitive Neuroscience of Metacognition pp 9–23Cite as

Quantifying Human Metacognition for the Neurosciences

  • Chapter
  • First Online:

Abstract

The study of metacognition examines the relation between internal cognitive processes and mental experience. To investigate metacognition researchers ask participants to make confidence judgments about the efficacy of some aspect of their cognition or memory. We are concerned that, in our haste to understand metacognition, we mistakenly equate the judgments we elicit from participants with the processes that underlie them. We assert here that multiple processes may determine any metacognitive judgment. In our own research, we explore the tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon (TOT). Both behavioral and neuroscience evidence suggest that a number of processes contribute to the TOT. The fMRI, electroencephalography (EEG), and magnetoencephalography (MEG) data find that retrieval failure and TOT experience map onto different areas of the brain and at different times following the presentation of a stimuli. Behavioral data suggest that there are multiple cognitive processes that contribute to the TOT, including cue familiarity and the retrieval of related information. We assert that TOTs occur when retrieval processes fail and a separate set of processes monitor the retrieval failure to determine if the target can eventually be recovered. Thus, the TOT data support a model in which different underlying processes are responsible for the cognition and the metacognition that monitors it. Thus, understanding any metacognitive judgment must involve understanding the cognition it measures and the multiple processes that contribute to the judgment.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.

Chapter
USD   29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD   189.00
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Hardcover Book
USD   249.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Learn about institutional subscriptions

References

  1. Bacon E, Schwartz BL, Paire-Ficout L, Izaute M (2007) Dissociation between the cognitive process and the phenomenological experience of the TOT: effect of the anxiolytic drug lorazepam on TOT states. Cogn Conscious 16:360–373

    Article  Google Scholar 

  2. Benjamin AS (2005) Response speeding mediates the contribution of cue familiarity and target retrievability to metamnemonic judgments. Psychon Bull Rev 12:874–879

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  3. Benjamin AS, Bjork RA, Schwartz BL (1998) The mismeasure of memory: when retrieval fluency is misleading as a metamnemonic index. J Exp Psychol Gen 127:55–68

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  4. Botvinick M (2007) Conflict monitoring and decision making: reconciling two perspectives on anterior cingulate function. Cogn Affect Behav Neurosci 7:356–366

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  5. Brown AS (1991) A review of the tip-of-the-tongue experience. Psychol Bull 109:204–223. doi:10.1037/0033-2909.109.2.204

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  6. Brown AS (2012) Tip of the tongue state. Psychology Press, New York, Jan 2011

    Google Scholar 

  7. Buján A, Galdo-Álvarez S, Lindín M, Díaz F (2012) An event-related potentials study of face naming: evidence of phonological retrieval deficit in the tip-of-the-tongue state. Psychophysiology 49:980–990. doi:10.1111/j.1469-8986.2012.01374.x

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  8. Buján A, Lindín M, Díaz F (2009) Movement related cortical potentials in a face naming task: influence of the tip-of-the-tongue state. Int J Psychophysiol 72:235–245. doi:10.1016/j.ijpsycho.2008.12.012

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  9. Cleary AM, Brown AS, Sawyer BD, Nomi JS, Ajoku AC, Ryals AJ (2012) Familiarity from the configuration of objects in 3-dimensional space and its relation to déjà vu: a virtual reality investigation. Conscious Cogn 21:969–975

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  10. Díaz F, Lindín M, Galdo-Álvarez S, Facal D, Juncos-Rabadán O (2007) An event-related potentials study of face identification and naming: the tip-of-the tongue state. Psychophysiology 44(1):50–68. doi:10.1111/j.1469-8986.2006.00483.x

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  11. Díaz F, Lindín M, Galdo-Álvarez S, Buján A (in press) Neurofunctional correlates of the tip-of-the-tongue state. In: Schwartz BL, Brown AS (eds) The Tip-of-the-tongue and related phenomena. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge

    Google Scholar 

  12. Do Lam ATA, Axmacher N, Fell J, Staresina BP, Gauggel S et al (2012) Monitoring the mind: the neurocognitive correlates of metamemory. PLoS one 7(1):e30009. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0030009

    Article  PubMed Central  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  13. Dunlosky J, Metcalfe J (2009) Metacognition. Sage Publications Inc, Thousand Oaks

    Google Scholar 

  14. Fechner GT (1860/1966) Elements of psychophysics. Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, New York

    Google Scholar 

  15. Galdo-Álvarez S, Lindín M, Díaz F (2009) Age-related prefrontal over-recruitment in semantic memory retrieval: evidence from successful face naming and the tip-of-the-tongue state. Biol Psychol 82(1):89–96. doi:10.1016/j.biopsycho.2009.06.003

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  16. Galdo-Álvarez S, Lindín M, Díaz F (2009) The effect of age on event-related potentials (ERP) associated with face naming and with the tip-of-the-tongue (TOT) state. Biol Psychol 81:14–23. doi:10.1016/j.biopsycho.2009.01.002

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  17. Jing L, Niki K, Xiaoping Y, Yue-jia L (2004) Knowing that you know and knowing that you don’t know: a fMRI study on feeling-of-knowing (FOK). Acta Psychol Sin 36:426–433

    Google Scholar 

  18. Kao Y-C, Davis ES, Gabrieli JDE (2005) Neural correlates of actual and predicted memory formation. Nat Neurosci 8:1776–1783

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  19. Kikyo H, Ohki K, Sekihara K (2001) Temporal characterization of memory retrieval processes: an fMRI study of the ‘tip of the tongue’ phenomenon. Eur J Neurosci 14(5):887–892. doi:10.1046/j.0953-816x.2001.01711.x

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  20. Koriat A (1993) How doe we know that we know? The accessibility account of the feeling of knowing. Psychol Rev 100:609–639

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  21. Lindín M, Díaz F (2010) Event-related potentials in face naming and tip-of-the-tongue state: further results. Int J Psychophysiol 77(1):53–58. doi:10.1016/j.ijpsycho.2010.04.002

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  22. Lindín M, Díaz F, Capilla A, Ortiz T, Maestú F (2010) On the characterization of the spatio-temporal profiles of brain activity associated with face naming and the tip-of-the-tongue state: a magnetoencephalographic (MEG) study. Neuropsychologia 48(6):1757–1766. doi:10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2010.02.025

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  23. Maril A, Simon JS, Mitchell JP, Schwartz BL, Schacter DL (2003) Feeling-of-knowing in episodic memory: an event-related fMRI study. NeuroImage 18:827–836

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  24. Maril A, Simons JS, Weaver JJ, Schacter DL (2005) Graded recall success: an event-related fMRI comparison of tip of the tongue and feeling of knowing. NeuroImage 24:1130–1138

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  25. Maril A, Wagner AD, Schacter DL (2001) On the tip of the tongue: an event-related fMRI study of semantic retrieval failure and cognitive conflict. Neuron 31:653–660

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  26. Metcalfe J (1993) Novelty monitoring, metacognition, and control in a composite holographic associative recall model: interpretations for Korsakoff amnesia. Psychol Rev 100:3–22

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  27. Metcalfe J, Schwartz BL, Joaquim SG (1993) The cue familiarity heuristic in metacognition. J Exp Psychol Learn Mem Cogn 19:851–861. doi:10.1037/0278-7393.19.4.851

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  28. Reggev N, Zuckerman M, Maril A (2011) Are all judgments created equal? An fMRI study of semantic and episodic metamnemonic predictions. Neuropsychologia 49:1332–1343

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  29. Schnyer DM, Nicholls L, Verfaellie M (2005) The role of VMPC in metamemorial judgments of content retrievability. J Cogn Neurosci 17:832–846

    Article  PubMed Central  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  30. Schwartz BL (1998) Illusory tip-of-the-tongue states. Memory 6:623–642

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  31. Schwartz BL (1999) Sparkling at the end of the tongue: the etiology of tip-of-the-tongue phenomenology. Psychon Bull Rev 6:379–393

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  32. Schwartz BL (2006) Tip-of-the-tongue states as metacognition. Metacogn Learn 1:149–158

    Article  Google Scholar 

  33. Schwartz BL, Bacon E (2008) Metacogn Neurosci. In: Dunlosky J, Bjork R (eds) Handbook of metamemory and memory. Psychology Press, New York, pp 355–371

    Google Scholar 

  34. Schwartz BL, Metcalfe J (1992) Cue familiarity but not target retrievability enhances feeling-of-knowing judgments. J Exp Psychol Learn Mem Cogn 18:1074–1083

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  35. Schwartz BL, Metcalfe J (2011) Tip-of-the-tongue (TOT) states: retrieval, behavior, and experience. Mem Cogn 39(5):737–749. doi:10.3758/s13421-010-0066-8

    Article  Google Scholar 

  36. Schwartz BL, Metcalfe J (in press) Tip-of-the-tongue (TOT) states: mechanisms and metacognitive control. In: Schwartz BL, Brown AS (eds) The Tip-of-the-tongue and related phenomena. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge

    Google Scholar 

  37. Shafto M, Stamatakis E, Tam P, Tyler L (2010) Word retrieval failures in old age: the relationship between structure and function. J Cogn Neurosci 22(7):1530–1540. doi:10.1162/jocn.2009.21321

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  38. Shimamura AP (2008) A neurocognitive approach to metacognitive monitoring and control. In: Dunlosky J, Bjork RA (eds) Handbook of memory and metamemory: essays in honor of Thomas O. Nelson. Psychology Press, New York, pp 373–390

    Google Scholar 

  39. Thomas AK, Bulevich JB, Dubois S (2011) The role of contextual information in episodic feeling of knowing. J Exp Psychol Learn Mem Cogn 38:96–108

    Article  Google Scholar 

  40. Tulving E (1989) Memory: performance, knowledge, and experience. Eur J Cogn Psychol 1:3–26

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, Florida International University, University Park, Miami, FL, 33199, USA

    Bennett L. Schwartz

  2. University of Santiago de Compostela, Santiago de Compostela, Spain

    Fernando Díaz

Authors
  1. Bennett L. Schwartz
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Fernando Díaz
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Bennett L. Schwartz .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Center for Neural Science, New York University, New York, New York, USA

    Stephen M. Fleming

  2. Aarhus University Hospital, Aarhus C, Denmark

    Christopher D. Frith

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2014 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Schwartz, B.L., Díaz, F. (2014). Quantifying Human Metacognition for the Neurosciences. In: Fleming, S., Frith, C. (eds) The Cognitive Neuroscience of Metacognition. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-45190-4_2

Download citation

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation