Focusing the uncertainty about nonhuman metacogntion

Abstract

It is clear that there is no shortage of uncertainty about metacognition in nonhuman animals. The four papers in this special issue have raised questions about the evidence for metacognition from many perspectives, ranging from concerns about whether existing control procedures unambiguously specify sources of stimulus control, to models that appear to generate metacognitive patterns of performance without explicitly metacognitive components, to critiques of the entire effort on the grounds that there is no mechanism specified for metacognition. The important question is whether metacognition is similarly useful in describing and explaining behavior, although it is unlikely to have such broad explanatory power as secondary reinforcement. By controlling for and manipulating particular sources of stimulus control, such as stimulus identity, response latency, generalization, and memory we will be able to determine experimentally which stimuli enter into metacognition under which conditions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)