Abstract
The integrated model of insight in schizophrenia suggests that poor insight is the result of multiple factors which compromise persons’ abilities to integrate streams of information into a ...personal awareness of psychiatric challenges, and make adaptive responses. This model hypothesizes that metacognitive deficits, or difficulties forming a complex and integrated understanding of the self and others, influence insight, regardless of other proximal causes including clinical profile. To explore this possibility, we performed a latent class analysis on 324 adults with schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder. This analysis produced 4 groups on the basis of assessment of insight and Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS) positive, negative, cognitive, and hostility symptoms. The resultant groups were characterized as: Good Insight/Low Symptoms (n = 71), Impaired Insight/High Negative Symptoms, (n = 43), Impaired Insight/High Positive Symptoms (n = 50) and Impaired Insight/Diffuse Symptoms (n = 160). When we compared metacognitive function as assessed with the Metacognition Assessment Scale - Abbreviated (MAS-A) across groups, we found that the good insight group had better overall metacognition as well as higher levels of self-reflectivity, awareness of the other and mastery as compared to all 3 groups with impaired insight. When controlling for total symptoms, all differences in metacognitive function between the good insight and the impaired insight groups remained significant. These results are consistent with the view that, independent of symptoms, impaired metacognition contributes to difficulties integrating information and hence impedes insight, or awareness of psychiatric challenges. Consistent with extant literature, results suggest that interventions focusing on metacognition as the target may lead to improved insight.
Abstract
Introduction
Metacognition is defined as the ability to reflect on one’s mental state. Literature showed that dysfunctional metacognitive activity (such as worry and rumination) plays an ...important role in insomnia genesis and maintenance. The aim of this study is (i) to evaluate metacognition differences between insomnia disorders (ID) patients and good sleepers (GS)and (ii) to assess Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy for Insomnia (CBT-I) effectiveness on both insomnia and metacognitive abilities.
Methods
We compared 27 GS (Insomnia Severity Index, ISI<10) (63.0% female, mean age 33±13.7yrs) and 27 ID patients (51.9% female, mean age 46.4±13.7yrs) evaluated both by ISI and Metacognition Insomnia Questionnaire (MCQ-I). ID patients underwent 7-session of group CBT-I and were evaluated pre- (T0) and post- (T1) treatment.
Results
GS and ID patients differed in MCQ-I total score (GS=105.6±20.5 vs ID= 138.1±26.2). All ID patients’ scores were above the clinical cutoff of 110. ID patients showed significant improvements both at ISI (T0=14.67±4.67 vs T1=7.07±4.37, p<0.001) and Sleep Diary parameters (T0 vs T1, p<0.05) as sleep latency, wake after sleep onset and sleep efficiency at T1. ID patients also showed an improvement of MCQ-I scores at T1, nevertheless, maintaining MCQ-I the mean score above the clinical cutoff level (MCQ-I_T0=138.1±26.2 vs MCQ-I_T1=123.7±28.6; p<0.05). Indeed, 29.6% of ID patients maintained equal or worse MCQ-I score at T1 compared to T0; 63% of ID patients still had a MCQ-I score above the clinical cutoff at T1.
Conclusion
CBT-I results effective on insomnia symptoms. Metacognitive dysfunctions appears to be a core feature in ID patients compared to good sleepers. Although the score reduction was significant after CBT-I, metacognitive dysfunction did not show remission after treatment possibly indicating the need of a specific intervention on this aspect. Metacognitive dysfunction in ID needs to be further investigated and may represent a new treatment target, in order to improve CBT-I effectiveness.
Support (if any)
None
While social learning is widespread, indiscriminate copying of others is rarely beneficial. Theory suggests that individuals should be selective in what, when, and whom they copy, by following ...‘social learning strategies’ (SLSs). The SLS concept has stimulated extensive experimental work, integrated theory, and empirical findings, and created impetus to the social learning and cultural evolution fields. However, the SLS concept needs updating to accommodate recent findings that individuals switch between strategies flexibly, that multiple strategies are deployed simultaneously, and that there is no one-to-one correspondence between psychological heuristics deployed and resulting population-level patterns. The field would also benefit from the simultaneous study of mechanism and function. SLSs provide a useful vehicle for bridge-building between cognitive psychology, neuroscience, and evolutionary biology.
Accumulating evidence supports theoretical predictions that humans and nonhumans are selective in what, when, and whom they copy, suggesting the use of SLSs.
Recent studies indicate that SLS use is flexible and changes with ontogeny, experience, state, and context.
Multiple SLSs may be adopted simultaneously in the same population, and even by the same individual. The SLSs of individuals do not necessarily correspond to apparent population-level patterns.
SLSs likely involve associative learning processes and social learning mechanisms; experimental controls indicate that associative learning alone cannot explain all SLS findings.
Recent neuroscientific data suggest that the anterior cingulate cortex in the gyrus (ACCg) is specialised for processing the social information of relevance to SLSs.
The role of metacognition in SLSs requires investigation.
In this study, two components of metacognition were examined, namely metacognitive knowledge and metacognitive skills. This study aims to analyse the students’ metacognitive abilities based on ...predetermined indicators, by looking at the relationship between the performance of metacognition knowledge and metacognition skill. The study discovers that the students with low, medium, and high scores perform differently. The conclusion is that students who have metacognition knowledge do not necessarily have metacognition skills or abilities.
Recent research in the science learning field emphasizes the importance of science learning that can empower 21st Century skills and implement metacognition-based learning. Metacognition is one of ...the foremost successful factors of learning achievement, which is the implementation in Indonesian schools is still being questioned. The present quantitative study aimed at gathering information on the profile of students’ metacognitive skills in Malang and figuring out whether the students’ grader influence metacognitive skills or not. This study was in ex post facto research which involves five levels of independent variables (grade level) and metacognitive skills as the dependent variable. The study involved 458 students (99 students in grade VII, 98 students in grade VIII, 98 students in grade IX, 77 students in grade X, and 86 students in grade XI) as the participants selected by homogeneous purposive sampling technique. The data of the metacognitive skills were collected by using Metacognitive Skills Rubric integrated with essay questions as the instrument. The collected data were analyzed through descriptive statistics and one-way ANOVA. The results of this study informed that the students’ metacognitive skills in Malang at each grade were categorized in “very low”. However, the level of grade significantly influenced the students’ metacognitive skills. The Senior High School (SHS) students possessed the highest level of metacognitive skills, and the students of grade VII of Junior High School (JHS) were at the lowest level. Senior High School students have better metacognitive skills than JHS students due to this kind of skills could develop by the increase of students’ grades in the process of education. The findings of this study also reveal the low level of students’ metacognitive skills. Therefore, the learning process is recommended to implement various learning form that can empower students’ metacognitive skills optimally.
Emerging evidence highlights the importance of metacognition – the capacity for insight into the reliability and fallibility of our own knowledge and thought – in politically contested domains. The ...present synthesis elucidates why metacognition matters in politically charged contexts and its potential impact on how individuals form beliefs, process evidence, and make decisions.
Emerging evidence highlights the importance of metacognition – the capacity for insight into the reliability and fallibility of our own knowledge and thought – in politically contested domains. The present synthesis elucidates why metacognition matters in politically charged contexts and its potential impact on how individuals form beliefs, process evidence, and make decisions.
To enhance formulation and interventions for emotional distress symptoms, research should aim to identify factors that contribute to distress and disorder. One way to formulate emotional distress ...symptoms is to view them as state manifestations of underlying personality traits. However, the metacognitive model suggests that emotional distress is maintained by metacognitive strategies directed by underlying metacognitive beliefs. The aim of the present study was therefore to evaluate the role of these factors as predictors of anxiety and depression symptoms in a cross-sectional sample of 4936 participants collected during the COVID-19 pandemic. Personality traits (especially neuroticism) were linked to anxiety and depression, but metacognitive beliefs and strategies accounted for additional variance. Among the predictors, metacognitive strategies accounted for the most variance in symptoms. Furthermore, we evaluated two statistical models based on personality traits versus metacognitions and found that the latter provided the best fit. Thus, these findings indicate that emotional distress symptoms are maintained by metacognitive strategies that are better accounted for by metacognitions compared with personality traits. Theoretical and clinical implications of these findings are discussed.
•Explicit and implicit metacognition were unrelated to selective social learning.•Belief understanding is linked to selective social learning performance.•Uncertainty gestures do not appear to ...reflect implicit metacognition.
Young children are often dependent on learning from others and to this effect develop heuristics to help distinguish reliable sources from unreliable sources. Where younger children rely heavily on social cues such as familiarity with a source to make this distinction, older children tend to rely more on an informant’s competence. Little is known about the cognitive mechanisms that help children to select the best informant; however, some evidence points toward mechanisms such as metacognition (thinking about thinking) and theory of mind (thinking about other’s thoughts) being involved. The goals of the current study were to (a) explore how the monitoring and control components of metacognition may predict selective social learning in preschoolers and (b) attempt to replicate a reported link between selective social learning and theory of mind. In Experiment 1, no relationship was observed across the measures. In Experiment 2, only selective social learning and belief reasoning were found to be related as well as when both experiments’ samples were combined. No links between selective social learning and metacognition were observed in the two experiments. These results suggest that theory of mind is a stronger correlate of selective learning than metacognition in young children. The implications regarding the kind of tasks used to measure metacognition are discussed.
More than one type of probability must be considered when making decisions. It is as necessary to know one’s chance of performing choices correctly as it is to know the chances that desired outcomes ...will follow choices. We refer to these two choice contingencies as internal and external probability. Neural activity across many frontal and parietal areas reflected internal and external probabilities in a similar manner during decision-making. However, neural recording and manipulation approaches suggest that one area, the anterior lateral prefrontal cortex (alPFC), is highly specialized for making prospective, metacognitive judgments on the basis of internal probability; it is essential for knowing which decisions to tackle, given its assessment of how well they will be performed. Its activity predicted prospective metacognitive judgments, and individual variation in activity predicted individual variation in metacognitive judgments. Its disruption altered metacognitive judgments, leading participants to tackle perceptual decisions they were likely to fail.
•People prospectively estimate their “internal probability” of deciding correctly•Prefrontal area, alPFC, accumulates internal probability information•alPFC disruption impairs prospective metacognition but not perceptual decisions•alPFC is crucial for estimating performance prior to tackling a perceptual decision
Miyamoto et al. found that activity in the anterior lateral prefrontal cortex (alPFC; area 47) reflects accumulation of information for prospective metacognitive decisions and predicts prospective metacognitive performance. Disruption of the alPFC by transcranial magnetic stimulation impairs accurate estimation of the probability of success prior to tackling difficult decisions with perceptual ambiguity.
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