Confidence Judgments and Metacognition in Comparative and Developmental Perspective

Georgia State University Research Foundation, Inc., Atlanta GA

Investigators

Abstract

People regularly assess what they do and do not know. They seek information that they lack for making good decisions, and they hesitate when they are unsure until certainty arrives through new information, or through careful reconsideration of a problem or question. This monitoring of one's perceptions, memories, and knowledge states is critical to many intellectual and educational activities - this capacity is called metacognition. The study of the precursors to human metacognition in nonverbal animals is a strong area of focus in comparative research, and the study of the emergence of metacognition in children is a strong focus of developmental research. This project will answer new questions of metacognitive competence across species and age ranges in humans, fostering new insights into a cognitive capacity that is critical to education, decision-making, and intellectual functioning. This type of research draws great interest from the media and the public, and will be presented directly to the public through various forms such as publications, presentations, documentaries, and live demonstrations of psychological research in progress at the Smithsonian's National Zoo. Undergraduate students, graduate students and postdoctoral associates will develop their skills as researchers, teachers, and future mentors through this research program, with a strong emphasis on the participation of underrepresented groups in this research. The tasks in this project will generate comparative data of cognitive monitoring by human adults, children, and nonhuman primates. The tasks will assess how these groups demonstrate confidence in what they know or do not know, adjust behavior to seek information when it is needed, and flexibly deal with varying degrees of perceptual experience, memory, and knowledge. The data will illustrate key aspects of the emergence of metacognitive control across species and across development. These non-invasive, behavioral studies will generate animal models for metacognition, expand the range of paradigms available to researchers, illuminate the early roots of metacognition in children, potentially support the study of metacognition in language-delayed or autistic children, and help ground efforts to train metacognition in populations that show impairment in this ability.