A Conjecture about Metacognitive Feelings

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Notes

In earlier sections we saw that:

• different responses reveal different developmental patterns;

• a dual-process theory aims to explain why this is so; but

• that theory, by itself, cannot explain looking times.

In this final section I suggest that adding metacognitive feelings to the dual-process theory will solve the problem.

Surprise

There appears to be a metacognitive feelings of surprise:

‘the intensity of felt surprise is not only influenced by the unexpectedness of the surprising event, but also by the degree of the event’s interference with ongoing mental activity, [...] the effect of unexpectedness on surprise is [...] partly mediated by mental interference’ (Reisenzein, 2000, p. 271).

That is, there is a feeling of surprise which is a sensational consequence of mental interference. (This can be tested by increasing cognitive load: this intensifies feelings of surprise without, of course, making the events themselves more surprising. But see Reisenzein, Horstmann, & Schützwohl (2017) for an alternative interpretation of such findings.)

So whereas the feelings of agency and familiarity are both consequences of unexpected fluency of processing, the feeling of surprise is supposed to be the opposite: it is a consequence of unexpected disfluency.^[1]

Surprise Explains Looking Times

Why will an infant observing an occluded object appear to pass through an impenetrable barrier look at the scence much longer than an infant who sees a physically possible event (Spelke, Breinlinger, Macomber, & Jacobson, 1992)? Perhaps because:

• the impossible event causes a problem for the faster process, which fails to identify a possible trajectory for the object;

• this interference in the faster process generates a metacognitive feeling of surprise; and

• that feeling causes the infant to look longer at the impossible event.

And why will such an infant (or even a much older child) fail to manually search in the correct place for the object (Mash, Novak, Berthier, & Keen, 2006)? Because:

• the faster process cannot initiate actions; and

• the metacognitive feeling reveals nothing about the object’s location (it is an intentional isolator).

Predictions

What predictions follow from the conjecture that metacognitive feelings connect developmentally unchanging, fast processes for tracking objects and minds to slow processes?

One basic prediction is that manipulations which affect metacognitive feelings of surprise in adults will also have task-irrelevant effects on infants’ performance in violation-of-expectation tasks.

In particular, given that cogntive load can enhance the metacognitive feeling of surprise in adults, we might predict—counterintuitively—that infants’ sensitivity will be better demonstrated by showing them slightly more complex scences.

Glossary

References

Endnotes