Abstract
Humans have a capacity to become aware of thoughts and behaviours known as metacognition. Metacognitive efficiency refers to the relationship between subjective reports and objective behaviour. Understanding how this efficiency changes as we age is important because poor metacognition can lead to negative consequences, such as believing one is a good driver despite a recent spate of accidents. We quantified metacognition in two cognitive domains, perception and memory, in healthy adults between 18 and 84years old, employing measures that dissociate objective task performance from metacognitive efficiency. We identified a marked decrease in perceptual metacognitive efficiency with age and a non-significant decrease in memory metacognitive efficiency. No significant relationship was identified between executive function and metacognition in either domain. Annual decline in metacognitive efficiency after controlling for executive function was ∼0.6%. Decreases in metacognitive efficiency may explain why dissociations between behaviour and beliefs become more marked as we age.
Highlights
Metacognition refers to ‘thinking about thinking’ (Flavell, 1979), or the ability to become aware of thoughts and behaviours
We found that the relationship between age and perceptual metacognitive efficiency remained significant after controlling for changes in executive function (b = À0.0058, p = 0.02), and increased executive function was not associated with better metacognitive efficiency (b = 0.0042, p = 0.26)
The primary aim of this study was to investigate the effects of age on metacognitive efficiency in healthy adults between the ages of 18 and 84
Summary
Metacognition refers to ‘thinking about thinking’ (Flavell, 1979), or the ability to become aware of thoughts and behaviours. Metacognition is a fundamental aspect of higher cognition in humans (Dunlosky & Metcalfe, 2009) and may support conscious awareness (Koriat, 2007), social interaction (Frith, 2012), and be impaired in neuropsychiatric disorders (David, Bedford, Wiffen, & Gilleen, 2012). Metacognition comprises both monitoring and control (Koriat & Goldsmith, 1996; Nelson, 1996).
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