Visual metacognition—the introspection and evaluation of one’s own visual perceptual processes—is measured through both decision confidence and “metacognitive efficiency.” Metacognitive efficiency refers to an individual’s ability to accurately judge incorrect and correct decisions through confidence ratings given their task performance. Previous imaging studies in humans and nonhuman primates reported widely distributed brain regions being involved in decision confidence and metacognition. However, the neural correlates of metacognition are remarkably inconsistent across studies concerning spatial outline. Therefore, this study investigates the neural correlates of visual metacognition by examining co-activation across regions that scale with visual decision confidence. We hypothesized that interacting processes of perceptual and metacognitive performance contribute to the arising decision confidence in distributed, but segregable co-activating brain regions. To test this hypothesis, we performed task-fMRI in healthy humans during a visual backward masking task with four-scale, post-decision confidence ratings. We measured blood oxygenation covariation patterns, which served as a physiological proxy for co-activation across brain regions. Decision confidence ratings and an individual’s metacognitive efficiency served as behavioral measures for metacognition. We found three distinct co-activation clusters involved in decision confidence: the first included right-centered fronto-temporal-parietal regions, the second included left temporal and parietal regions, and the left basal forebrain (BF), and the third included cerebellar regions. The right fronto-temporal-parietal cluster including the supplementary eye field and the right basal forebrain showed stronger co-activation in subjects with higher metacognitive efficiency. Our results provide novel evidence for co-activation of widely distributed fronto-parieto-temporal regions involved in visual confidence. The supplementary eye field was the only region that activated for both decision confidence and metacognitive efficiency, suggesting the supplementary eye field plays a key role in visual metacognition. Our results link findings in electrophysiology studies and human fMRI studies and provide evidence that confidence estimates arise from the integration of multiple information processing pathways.

中文翻译：

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视觉感知过程中决策信心出现的分离共激活模式

视觉元认知——对自己视觉感知过程的内省和评估——是通过决策信心和“元认知效率”来衡量的。元认知效率是指个人通过给定其任务绩效的信心评级准确判断不正确和正确决策的能力。先前对人类和非人类灵长类动物的成像研究报告了广泛分布的大脑区域参与决策信心和元认知。然而，元认知的神经相关性在有关空间轮廓的研究中明显不一致。因此，本研究通过检查与视觉决策置信度相关的区域的共激活来研究视觉元认知的神经相关性。我们假设感知和元认知表现的相互作用过程有助于在分布式但可分离的共激活大脑区域中产生决策信心。为了验证这一假设，我们在具有四尺度、决策后置信度评级的视觉后向掩蔽任务中对健康人进行了任务-fMRI。我们测量了血液氧合协变模式，作为跨大脑区域共激活的生理指标。决策信心评级和个人的元认知效率作为元认知的行为测量。我们发现了三个不同的共激活簇参与决策信心：第一个包括右中心的额颞顶叶区域，第二个包括左颞叶和顶叶区域，以及左基底前脑 (BF)，第三个包括小脑区域。在元认知效率较高的受试者中，包括辅助眼场和右基底前脑在内的右额颞顶叶簇表现出更强的共激活。我们的结果为广泛分布的额顶颞区的共同激活提供了新的证据，该区域涉及视觉信心。辅助眼场是唯一同时激活决策信心和元认知效率的区域，这表明辅助眼场在视觉元认知中起着关键作用。我们的结果将电生理学研究和人类 fMRI 研究的发现联系起来，并提供证据表明置信度估计来自多种信息处理途径的整合。在元认知效率较高的受试者中，包括辅助眼场和右基底前脑在内的右额颞顶叶簇表现出更强的共激活。我们的结果为广泛分布的额顶颞区的共同激活提供了新的证据，该区域涉及视觉信心。辅助眼场是唯一同时激活决策信心和元认知效率的区域，这表明辅助眼场在视觉元认知中起着关键作用。我们的结果将电生理学研究和人类 fMRI 研究的发现联系起来，并提供证据表明置信度估计来自多种信息处理途径的整合。在元认知效率较高的受试者中，包括辅助眼场和右基底前脑在内的右额颞顶叶簇表现出更强的共激活。我们的结果为广泛分布的额顶颞区的共同激活提供了新的证据，该区域涉及视觉信心。辅助眼场是唯一同时激活决策信心和元认知效率的区域，这表明辅助眼场在视觉元认知中起着关键作用。我们的结果将电生理学研究和人类 fMRI 研究的发现联系起来，并提供证据表明置信度估计来自多种信息处理途径的整合。我们的结果为广泛分布的额顶颞区的共同激活提供了新的证据，该区域涉及视觉信心。辅助眼场是唯一同时激活决策信心和元认知效率的区域，这表明辅助眼场在视觉元认知中起着关键作用。我们的结果将电生理学研究和人类 fMRI 研究的发现联系起来，并提供证据表明置信度估计来自多种信息处理途径的整合。我们的结果为广泛分布的额顶颞区的共同激活提供了新的证据，该区域涉及视觉信心。辅助眼场是唯一同时激活决策信心和元认知效率的区域，这表明辅助眼场在视觉元认知中起着关键作用。我们的结果将电生理学研究和人类 fMRI 研究的发现联系起来，并提供证据表明置信度估计来自多种信息处理途径的整合。表明辅助眼场在视觉元认知中起着关键作用。我们的结果将电生理学研究和人类 fMRI 研究的发现联系起来，并提供证据表明置信度估计来自多种信息处理途径的整合。表明辅助眼场在视觉元认知中起着关键作用。我们的结果将电生理学研究和人类 fMRI 研究的发现联系起来，并提供证据表明置信度估计来自多种信息处理途径的整合。