Metacognition and Frontal Lobe Functioning

The frontal lobes have been reported to play in important role in metacognition. The present study evaluated metacognition in a group of neurological patients.

Twenty-one neurological (traumatic brain injury and cerebral vascular accident) patients were administered a metacognitive test and neuropsychological tests including a well-known index of frontal lobe functioning, the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST). After each trial, the participants were asked to evaluate their own performance on a face recognition test by rating their confidence about their accuracy on a scale of 1 (not very confident) to 3 (very confident).

A point biserial correlation between accuracy on each trial and confidence was calculated for each participant as a measure of metacognition, Mcog. Mcog was significantly associated with the index of executive/frontal lobe functioning, WCST number of categories. Mcog was not associated with Full Scale IQ, General Memory Quotient, or Benton Facial Recognition Test score (short form, which did not include the experimental trials).

These data add support to the idea that the frontal lobes have a special role in metacognition.