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Updated: Oct 26, 2025
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Investigating the Deployment of Visual Attention Before Accurate and Averaging Saccades via Eye Tracking and Assessment of Visual Sensitivity
Published on: March 18, 2019
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Metacognitive blindness in temporal selection during the deployment of spatial attention
Samuel Recht1, Vincent de Gardelle2, Pascal Mamassian3
1Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK; Laboratoire des systèmes perceptifs, Département d'études cognitives, École normale supérieure, PSL University, CNRS, Paris, France.
Cognition
|August 2, 2021
Summary
Confidence judgments remain unaware of attention deployment delays. This study reveals a metacognitive blind spot, impacting confidence during voluntary attention shifts.
Area of Science:
- Cognitive Neuroscience
- Psychology
- Metacognition
Background:
- Orienting spatial attention enhances visual performance but has temporal costs.
- The ability to monitor attention deployment time is not well understood.
- Metacognition, or the awareness of one's own cognition, is crucial for accurate self-assessment.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate how the process of orienting attention in space influences confidence judgments.
- To determine if metacognition is sensitive to the temporal delays associated with attention deployment.
- To explore the relationship between attentional and metacognitive systems.
Main Methods:
- Adapted a "Wundt clocks" paradigm with 140 observers.
- Observers reproduced the phase of a rotating clock at an attentional cue.
- Confidence in responses was evaluated alongside phase reproduction.
Main Results:
- Attention deployment introduced perceptual delays, aligning with known voluntary and involuntary attention latencies.
- Confidence judgments did not reflect these attention-induced perceptual delays, indicating a 'metacognitive blind spot'.
- Metacognition was weaker during voluntary attention deployment, suggesting a link between attentional and metacognitive processes.
Conclusions:
- The dynamic process of orienting attention, not just the attended location, can alter metacognitive accuracy.
- Metacognitive systems may not fully account for the temporal dynamics of attention.
- Further research is needed to understand the interplay between attention, perception, and metacognition.
