Awareness, Agency, and Metacognition¶
Scope: Conscious experience of perception (perceptual awareness, masking); metacognitive monitoring and control; sense of agency; body ownership; interoceptive awareness; self-referential processing; feeling of knowing; judgment of learning; mind wandering; self-monitoring; attentional awareness.
Out of scope: “Consciousness” as a trait or umbrella construct.
Note
Open issues: The scope boundary with Selective and Sustained Attention is thin (attentional awareness vs. attention itself). Keep the test: a process goes here if the reportable content is what the participant consciously experiences, not the selection mechanism producing it.
This category contains 13 processes.
Attentional awareness¶
Process ID: hed_attentional_awareness
Awareness of the current focus and content of attention.
Tasks that engage this process: Rapid Serial Visual Presentation Task, Visual Masking Task
Fundamental references
Body ownership¶
Process ID: hed_body_ownership
The experience that a body or body-part belongs to the self, revealed by multisensory illusions in which synchronous visuo-tactile or visuo-proprioceptive input shifts the perceived location of the body.
Tasks that engage this process: Body Ownership Illusion Task
Fundamental references
Ehrsson HH, Spence C & Passingham RE (2004) Science 305:875-877 (DOI)
Further references
Feeling of knowing¶
Process ID: hed_feeling_of_knowing
Judgment that information currently not retrievable would be recognized if presented.
Tasks that engage this process: Feeling-of-Knowing Task
Interoceptive awareness¶
Process ID: hed_interoceptive_awareness
Also known as: interoception
Conscious perception of internal bodily signals such as heartbeat, respiration, and visceral state; indexed by heartbeat-detection accuracy, heartbeat-evoked potentials, and interoceptive sensibility measures.
Tasks that engage this process: Body Ownership Illusion Task, Heartbeat Detection Task
Fundamental references
Schandry R (1981) Psychophysiology 18:483-488 (DOI)
Craig AD (2002) Nature Reviews Neuroscience 3:655-666 (DOI, PubMed)
Further references
Judgment of learning¶
Process ID: hed_judgment_of_learning
Prediction of future memory performance made during or after encoding.
Tasks that engage this process: Judgment-of-Learning Task
Fundamental references
Arbuckle & Cuddy (1969) Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior 8:126–131
Masking¶
Process ID: hed_masking
Reduction in visibility or detectability of a target stimulus by a temporally or spatially adjacent masker.
Tasks that engage this process: Auditory Masking Task, Visual Masking Task
Fundamental references
Metacognitive control¶
Process ID: hed_metacognitive_control
Regulation of cognition based on metacognitive monitoring - study-time allocation, strategy selection, answer withholding, and restart decisions - linking second-order evaluation to first-order behavior.
Tasks that engage this process: Directed Forgetting Task, Judgment-of-Learning Task, Think/No-Think Task
Fundamental references
Nelson TO & Narens L (1990) The Psychology of Learning and Motivation 26:125-173 (DOI)
Son LK & Metcalfe J (2000) Journal of Experimental Psychology: LMC 26:204-221 (DOI)
Further references
Metacognitive monitoring¶
Process ID: hed_metacognitive_monitoring
Second-order evaluation of ongoing first-order cognition - how confident one is in a perception, memory, or judgment - yielding reportable assessments that dissociate from first-order accuracy.
Tasks that engage this process: Feeling-of-Knowing Task, Heartbeat Detection Task, Intentional Binding Task, Judgment-of-Learning Task, Remember/Know Task, Sustained Attention to Response Task
Fundamental references
Nelson TO & Narens L (1990) The Psychology of Learning and Motivation 26:125-173 (DOI)
Koriat A (1997) Journal of Experimental Psychology: General 126:349-370 (DOI)
Fleming SM & Lau HC (2014) Frontiers in Human Neuroscience 8:443 (DOI, PubMed)
Further references
Mind wandering¶
Process ID: hed_mind_wandering
Also known as: task-unrelated thought; mind-wandering
Task-unrelated thought that arises during an ongoing task.
Tasks that engage this process: Continuous Performance Task, Psychomotor Vigilance Task, Sustained Attention to Response Task
Fundamental references
Smallwood & Schooler (2006) Psychological Bulletin 132:946–958 (DOI)
Further references
Perceptual awareness¶
Process ID: hed_perceptual_awareness
Also known as: conscious perception
Conscious access to perceptual content.
Tasks that engage this process: Rapid Serial Visual Presentation Task, Visual Masking Task
Fundamental references
Baars (1988) A Cognitive Theory of Consciousness Cambridge University Press
Dehaene, Changeux, Naccache, Sackur & Sergent (2006) Trends in Cognitive Sciences 10:204–211 (DOI)
Further references
Dehaene (2014) Consciousness and the Brain
Self-monitoring¶
Process ID: hed_self_monitoring
Ongoing evaluation of one’s own performance against task goals and expected outcomes.
Tasks that engage this process: Heartbeat Detection Task, Imitation-Inhibition Task, Prospective Memory Task, Source Memory Task, Sustained Attention to Response Task, Verbal Fluency Task
Fundamental references
Nelson & Narens (1990) in The Psychology of Learning and Motivation (DOI)
Self-referential processing¶
Process ID: hed_self_referential_processing
Also known as: self-referential
Processing of information in relation to the self, yielding enhanced encoding for self-relevant material and characteristic engagement of cortical midline structures (mPFC, PCC).
Tasks that engage this process: Autobiographical Memory Task, Body Ownership Illusion Task, Self-Referential Encoding Task
Fundamental references
Rogers TB, Kuiper NA & Kirker WS (1977) Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 35:677-688 (DOI)
Kelley WM et al. (2002) Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience 14:785-794 (DOI)
Northoff G et al. (2006) NeuroImage 31:440-457 (DOI, PubMed)
Further references
Sense of agency¶
Process ID: hed_sense_of_agency
The experience of being the cause of one’s own actions and their sensory consequences, dissociable into implicit (intentional binding) and explicit (authorship judgment) components.
Tasks that engage this process: Intentional Binding Task
Fundamental references
Libet B et al. (1983) Brain 106:623-642 (DOI)
Haggard P, Clark S & Kalogeras J (2002) Nature Neuroscience 5:382-385 (DOI, PubMed)
Further references