Metacognition

The term metacognition is derived from cognition ( a collective term for all mental- mental processes and contents that are related to the awareness of and recognition ) and refers to the analysis of their own cognitive processes (thoughts, opinions, attitudes, etc.), so the "knowledge about one's own knowledge. "

The name goes back to John H. Flavell ( emeritus professor of psychology at Stanford University) and Henry M. Wellman (Professor of Psychology at the University of Michigan ). Today also the neuroscientific bases are explored.

Concept and dimensions of metacognition

In a nutshell means metacognition, thinking about thinking '. Thinking is seen as process, which can be prone to many disorders. External stimuli, sensory registers included in the ' and from there on to the short-term memory, which produces the prepared pieces of information encoded and so meaningful containing elements of knowledge. Through specialized buffer ' that knowledge is processed and passed on to long-term memory, where it as a semantic or episodic knowledge, archived ' is. There meanings and individual information may be incorrectly assigned, the long-term memory can store the information elements incorrectly or the process can be blocked altogether. As a result of such disturbances knowledge elements can not or only very laboriously again, tracked ' are. Metacognition "plans, manages and controls thought processes with the intent to optimize them and mistakes [ ... ] to minimize " by thinking - figuratively speaking - a reminder of this it generally belonging processes.

According to Flavell (1992, 1993) we can distinguish two dimensions: Metacognitive knowledge ( metacognitive knowledge ) as declarative aspect and metacognitive control ( metacognitive monitoring and self -regulation ) as executive aspect.

The declarative aspect encompasses person-related knowledge ( everything you could about his own thinking and memory white), task- related knowledge ( what is the nature a task and the requirements that they provide ) and the knowledge of strategies, which allows the learner to discover ways in their to assess suitability for addressing the task, and evaluate alternative solutions in their effectiveness.

The executive aspect involves two basic processes: the metacognitive control ( self-regulation ) and the control ( self-monitoring ). The metacognitive control refers to all activities of planning, regulation and evaluation during the processing of a task. The control determines in how far one is from this operation, if you are destination on the way to and whether it has reached the set in the planning milestones or even the end goal.

Experiments on metacognition in monkeys

Experiments by a research group led by J. David Smith show that rhesus monkeys are capable of metacognition, ie to reflect on their own knowledge.

End of 2004, the result of a behavioral biology experiment has been published which is able to demonstrate that animals reflect their behavior and adjust their level of knowledge.

The following experiment was carried out with rhesus monkeys: A rhesus monkey sitting in front of four opaque tubes. A researcher put it in one of these tubes a tasty piece of food. Without hesitation the ape engages the corresponding tubes, brings out the food and consuming the delicacy. Previously, he had just seen, in which the feed tube was hidden. The Investigator of the U.S. National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH ) in Bethesda fills again with a tube feed. This time, however, the rhesus monkey is the view obstructed and he can not see where the food is hidden. In response, the monkey looks then into the tubes, then select the correct and eaten the food. The researcher Robert Hampton and his colleagues of the Neuropsychological Department tested in this way, several rhesus monkeys. The researchers employed the question of whether rhesus monkeys have a memory - awareness, ie whether they are able to consciously access their memory and consequently to know if they know or if they do not know something. This capability is called in the jargon metacognition and already counted to a higher form of consciousness. Until recently, you have believed such a degree of reflectiveness only human. Today, scientists are looking for these skills in the animal kingdom.

The research group led by Robert Hampton interested, therefore, whether it would be rhesus monkeys aware when they did not know where the reward is and whether they would consequently change their behavior by look into the tube. In fact, this assumption was confirmed in the experiment. If the rhesus monkey knew where the reward was, she did not look earlier in the tubes. They did it only if they did not know where was the food. They adapted their behavior so at their state of knowledge. The difference in the behavior of rhesus monkeys shows that they can distinguish between knowledge and ignorance, so that they have a memory - aware and able to metacognition.

Projected A similar situation to the people would be the ability to determine whether we know a phone number or not, before we pick up the phone and dial. Do we know the number and are aware of this knowledge, we will not hesitate to choose the number. Can we not call the number into consciousness, we take look up the time before we choose. So we know when we know and adjust our behavior accordingly.

The study further shows that a memory - awareness is not limited to humans and great apes, but is more common among primates than previously thought. Because rhesus monkeys belong to a group of monkeys to man kinship not as closely related as the great apes, which also have these metacognitive skills.

It is believed that in general the function of memory - consciousness could be to allow an animal to avoid situations in which it does not have sufficient knowledge. There is little reason to believe that this ability is limited to primates. Still, however, further studies are necessary to this hypothesis.

But you can already now say with clarity: Man is not the only sentient beings on the Earth. The person is not the result of a progress in evolution. Man is a specific type among many others that have developed in parallel to each other and specializing in evolution.

Awareness, so experts suggest, could have evolved in parallel with the species and is therefore to be found in many species before us. The big difference between man and animal is then perhaps not in the presence of consciousness, but rather in its specific content, which. Of the ecological niche, depends on the habitat to which each animal is adapted Aware of an animal are the information and signals for which the animal has sense organs that help it is based and which enable them to survive in its environment. That is, the contents of consciousness of different animal species are very different from each other.

Contents of consciousness, that distinguish us people who are connected with our elaborated, syntactic language and with our high-performance memory, which allows us a longer-term future planning and the construction of an autobiographical self. However, the basic ability to consciousness does not depend on.

The University of Iowa came through experience with patients in whom brain damage whose consciousness was impaired to the belief that there are two types of consciousness:

A simple, basic form, the so-called core consciousness, which occurs in many species before us, and an expanded awareness that has in its most perfect expression of the man, but in gradual gradation also have animals.

From this it could be deduced that the essence of the core consciousness is the sense of self, as an individual being. In conferring it the self - sense of a fleeting sense of knowing. Primarily, it depends on regions that are phylogenetically older and more located in the depths of the brain. Less old, however, is the expansion of consciousness through a powerful memory, making it possible to store a wealth of information, facts and autobiographical memories.