Relationships between implicit and explicit uncertainty monitoring and mindreading: Evidence from autism spectrum disorder

• Published in: Consciousness and cognition Vol. 70; pp. 11 - 24
• Main Authors: Nicholson, Toby, Williams, David M., Grainger, Catherine, Lind, Sophie E., Carruthers, Peter
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States Elsevier Inc 01.04.2019; Elsevier BV
• Subjects: Autism; Autism spectrum disorder; Cognitive ability; Decision making; Metacognition; Mindreading; Uncertainty judgment; Uncertainty monitoring; Uncertainty judgment; Uncertainty monitoring; Mindreading; Autism spectrum disorder; Metacognition
• ISSN: 1053-8100; 1090-2376
• DOI: 10.1016/j.concog.2019.01.013

•Explicit, but not implicit, uncertainty-monitoring impaired in ASD.•Only explicit uncertainty-monitoring correlated with mindreading.•Implicit uncertainty-monitoring tasks may not be truly metacognitive.•Common mechanism may underpin mindreading and metacognition. We examined performance on implicit (non-verbal) and explicit (verbal) uncertainty-monitoring tasks among neurotypical participants and participants with autism, while also testing mindreading abilities in both groups. We found that: (i) performance of autistic participants was unimpaired on the implicit uncertainty-monitoring task, while being significantly impaired on the explicit task; (ii) performance on the explicit task was correlated with performance on mindreading tasks in both groups, whereas performance on the implicit uncertainty-monitoring task was not; and (iii) performance on implicit and explicit uncertainty-monitoring tasks was not correlated. The results support the view that (a) explicit uncertainty-monitoring draws on the same cognitive faculty as mindreading whereas (b) implicit uncertainty-monitoring only test first-order decision making. These findings support the theory that metacognition and mindreading are underpinned by the same meta-representational faculty/resources, and that the implicit uncertainty-monitoring tasks that are frequently used with non-human animals fail to demonstrate the presence of metacognitive abilities.