metacognition

Syllable breakdown

Dictionary meaning

Cognition about cognition: the ability to monitor, evaluate, and regulate one's own mental processes; in consciousness studies, metacognition is studied as a candidate marker of higher-order consciousness — the capacity to represent one's own mental states

History and origin

Greek meta (beyond/about) + Latin cognitio (knowing); introduced into cognitive psychology by John Flavell in 1979; extended to consciousness research by Christof Koch, Stanislas Dehaene, and others

Examples

• Metacognition is implicated when a subject rates their confidence in a perceptual decision, revealing access to their own mental states.
• Some theorists argue that metacognition, not mere perception, is the hallmark of genuine conscious awareness.

Synonyms: second-order cognition, meta-awareness, cognitive monitoring