On a ‘failed’ attempt to manipulate visual metacognition with transcranial magnetic stimulation to prefrontal cortex

Abstract

Rounis, Maniscalco, Rothwell, Passingham, and Lau (2010) reported that stimulation of prefrontal cortex impairs visual metacognition. Bor, Schwartzman, Barrett, and Seth (2017) attempted to replicate this result, but adopted an experimental design that reduced their chanceof obtaining positive findings. Despite that, their results appeared initially consistent with those of Rounis et al., but they subsequently claimed it was necessary to discard ∼30% of their subjects, after which they reported a null result. Using computer simulations, we found that, contrary to their supposed purpose, excluding subjects by Bor et al.'s criteria does not reduce false positive rates. Including both their positive and negative result in a Bayesian framework, we show the correct interpretation is that PFC stimulation likely impaired visual metacognition, exactly contradicting Bor et al.'s claims. That lesion and inactivation studies demonstrate similar positive effects further suggests that Bor et al.'s reported negative finding isn't evidence against the role of prefrontal cortex in metacognition.

Action information contributes to metacognitive decision-making

“…Previous work demonstrated that lesions to prefrontal cortex affect metacognitive performance without altering first-order decision-making 67,68 . Similarly, disrupting prefrontal activity via theta burst stimulation has been shown to selectively alter metacognitive performance [69][70][71] (but see 72,73 ). The detection of erroneous behavior, a key aspect of metacognition 5,19 , has been strongly linked to a rapidly emerging central frontal negativity in the EEG signal (error-related negativity 74 ), thought to reflect coordinated theta oscillatory mechanisms [75][76][77][78][79] .…”

Action information contributes to metacognitive decision-making

“…Similarly, disrupting prefrontal activity via theta burst stimulation has been shown to selectively alter metacognitive performance (Rounis et al 2010;Ryals et al 2016;Shekhar and Rahnev 2018, but see Bor at al. 2017and Ruby et al 2018). The detection of erroneous behavior, a key aspect of metacognition (Yueng and Summerfield 2012;Fleming and Daw 2017), has been strongly linked to a rapidly emerging central frontal negativity in the EEG signal (error-related negativity, Falkenstein et al 1991), thought to reflect coordinated theta oscillatory mechanisms (Luu and Tucker 2001;Cohen et al 2008;Bates et al 2009;Cavenagh et al 2009;Cohen and Cavenagh 2011).…”

Competitive Frontoparietal Interactions Mediate Implicit Inferences

“…The use of different hands for these different responses would more definitively rule out contributions from these types of response biases. Finally, in the current study, hit rates were relatively high for some participants, creating potentially unstable estimates of second-order performance (Bor et al, 2017;Ruby et al, 2018). A staircase procedure before the experiment could address this issue in future studies.…”