Journal article
Neural oscillations of metacognition: evidence for domain-specificity and age-related compensation
Cerebral Cortex, Vol.35(10), pp.1-18
2025
PMID: 41159703
Abstract
Metacognition enables adaptive behavior through the self-evaluation of our cognitions. An unresolved question is whether metacognition relies on domain-general or domain-specific mechanisms. The domain-general account proposes that shared prefrontal resources support metacognition across all cognitive functions. This predicts that metacognitive abilities should correlate across cognitive tasks and show uniform age-related decline, as aging would affect this shared system. However, behavioral results show inconsistent cross-domain correlations and age-related decline, often confounded by methodological differences between tasks. The neural oscillations supporting metacognition also remain unclear, though electroencephalography (EEG) studies suggest theta oscillations as a potential mechanism in specific domains. No study has compared both behavioral and oscillatory patterns across domains using matched tasks. We addressed this by recording EEG from younger and older-adults during matched perceptual and visual short-term memory tasks. Despite equivalent task performance, aging selectively impaired metacognition in perception and not memory, revealing behavioral decoupling between domains. This dissociation was mirrored in oscillatory dynamics. Younger adults showed stronger occipital theta-synchronization supporting perceptual metacognition, while older adults engaged compensatory frontal beta-desynchronization. During memory, older adults’ metacognition was supported by occipital alpha-desynchronization. These findings reveal the domain-specific oscillatory mechanisms supporting metacognition, each tuned to computational demands of the cognitive domain and age-group.
Details
- Title
- Neural oscillations of metacognition: evidence for domain-specificity and age-related compensation
- Authors
- Thomas Pace (Corresponding Author) - University of the Sunshine Coast, Queensland, Thompson InstituteMyles Darrant - University of the Sunshine Coast, Queensland, Thompson InstituteDaniel F Hermens - University of the Sunshine Coast, Queensland, Thompson InstituteSophie C Andrews - University of the Sunshine Coast, Queensland, Thompson Institute
- Publication details
- Cerebral Cortex, Vol.35(10), pp.1-18
- Publisher
- Oxford University Press
- Date published
- 2025
- DOI
- 10.1093/cercor/bhaf285
- ISSN
- 1460-2199
- PMID
- 41159703
- Copyright note
- © The Author(s) 2025. Published by Oxford University Press. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. For commercial re-use, please contact reprints@oup.com for reprints and translation rights for reprints. All other permissions can be obtained through our RightsLink service via the Permissions link on the article page on our site—for further information please contact journals.permissions@oup.com.
- Data Availability
- Data and scripts for plotting Figs. 1–7 available at OSF (https://osf.io/ugbvc).
- Organisation Unit
- Healthy Ageing Research Cluster; Thompson Institute
- Language
- English
- Record Identifier
- 991175111102621
- Output Type
- Journal article
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