Article Figures & Data
Figures
- Figure 1.
Experimental paradigm. Participants completed 2 tasks in a counterbalanced order. A, Perceptual discrimination task. Each trial (N = 360) consisted of a visual display of 6 Gabor gratings, followed by an ISI of 500 ms, followed by a second visual display of 6 Gabor gratings. In one of the two displays, the orientation of one randomly selected Gabor patch was tilted slightly from the vertical axis. The orientation angle of this pop-out Gabor was adjusted using a 2-up 1-down adaptive staircase procedure. Participants made unspeeded 2-choice discrimination judgments as to whether the “pop-out” Gabor occurred in either the first or second stimulus display, then rated their confidence in the accuracy of their response on a scale of 1 (low confidence) to 6 (high confidence). B, Memory retrieval task. The memory task consisted of a classic verbal recognition memory paradigm. During encoding, participants viewed 145 words randomly selected from a set of 290 words. During recognition, participants were presented with each word from the full list of stimuli in a random order (half of which were presented during encoding and half of which were new) and were asked to make unspeeded 2-choice discrimination judgments as to whether the stimulus was old or new, and then rated their confidence in their response.
- Figure 2.
Behavioral results. Scatterplot of zero-order correlation between metacognitive accuracy for perceptual decisions (Aroc) and memorial judgments (Mratio) [r(50) = 0.03, p = 0.81].
- Figure 3.
A, Lateral aPFC connectivity. Right lateral aPFC showed intrinsic connectivity with a broad network, including bilateral regions of superior frontal gyrus, cingulate gyrus, inferior frontal gyrus, precuneus, postcentral gyrus, inferior parietal lobule, lateral temporal cortex, orbital frontal cortex, thalamus, basal ganglia, caudate, insula, and cerebellum. B, Medial aPFC connectivity. Right medial aPFC displayed connectivity with bilateral regions of medial prefrontal cortex, orbital frontal cortex, precuneus, inferior parietal lobule, lateral temporal cortex, precentral gyrus, posterior and anterior cingulate, hippocampal formation, insula, thalamus, inferior occipital gyrus, and cerebellum.
- Figure 4.
A, Seed regions. To estimate connectivity, two spherical ROIs of 6 mm diameter with centers at 6, 58, 0 (medial aPFC; reflecting the area described by Gilbert et al., 2006; meta-analysis) and 24, 58, 18 (lateral aPFC; reflecting the area reported by Fleming et al. (2010)) were defined in MNI152 space. B, fMRI connectivity results. Top two panels, Metacognitive accuracy for perceptual decisions is associated with increased connectivity between lateral aPFC seed region and right dACC, bilateral putamen, right caudate, and thalamus. Bottom two panels, Metacognitive accuracy for memory is associated with increased connectivity between medial aPFC and right precuneus and right IPS/IPL. All clusters are significant at p < 0.05, corrected for multiple comparisons using topological FDR (cluster forming threshold, p < 0.005). C, Correlation between metacognitive accuracy scores and mean normalized correlation values of significant clusters.
- Figure 5.
Differential functional connectivity between medial and lateral aPFC correlated with metacognitive accuracy for memory. A, Medial aPFC–lateral aPFC connectivity correlated with metacognitive accuracy for memory predicted 5 clusters, including the hippocampal formation, precuneus, fusiform gyrus, lingual gyrus, and precentral gyrus (Table 2). All clusters are significant at p < 0.05, corrected for multiple comparisons using topological FDR (cluster forming threshold, p < 0.005). B, Correlation between metacognitive accuracy scores and mean normalized correlation values of medial–lateral aPFC functional connectivity of all significant clusters.
Tables
- Table 1.
Functional connectivity of medial and lateral aPFC correlated with metacognitive accuracy for memory and perceptiona
Region Volume (mm3) Peak z-value p (cluster FDRc) Peak MNI x y z Memory (Mratio) Medial aPFC Right IPL/IPS 542 4.91 0.001 30 −48 36 Right precuneus 488 3.93 0.001 8 −48 52 Perception (Aroc) Lateral aPFC Right dACC 390 3.87 0.001 8 42 42 Right putamen, right caudate, thalamus 602 3.95 >0.001 12 −12 6 Left putamen 245 4.05 0.014 −24 14 8 ↵aAll clusters significant at p < 0.05, FDR corrected (height threshold, p < 0.005).
- Table 2.
Differential functional connectivity between medial and lateral aPFC correlated with metacognitive accuracy for memorya
Region Volume (mm3) Peak z-value p (cluster FDRc) Peak MNI x y z Right parahippocampal gyrus, right fusiform gyrus 913 4.96 <0.001 34 −28 −16 Precentral/postcentral gyrus, MFG, precuneus 3445 4.69 <0.001 18 −22 68 Right lingual gyrus, right MOG 1621 4.18 <0.001 28 −86 14 Left fusiform gyrus, left MOG 367 4.10 0.003 −46 −72 −8 Left parahippocampal gyrus, left fusiform gyrus, left lingual gyrus 272 3.89 0.012 −26 −38 −16 Left insula, left precentral gyrus 296 3.55 0.009 −46 −12 22 ↵aAll clusters significant at p < 0.05, FDR corrected (height threshold, p < 0.005).
MFG, Medial frontal gyrus; MOG, middle occipital gyrus.
