Metacognitive evaluation, self-relevance, and the right prefrontal cortex

doi:10.1016/j.neuroimage.2004.02.018

NeuroImage

Volume 22, Issue 2, June 2004, Pages 941-947

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuroimage.2004.02.018 Get rights and content

Abstract

The capability to foster metacognitive evaluations (MEs) of oneself and others represents a major component of conscious awareness. Separate emerging lines of brain activation research examining ME have converged on the medial prefrontal cortex as a common finding. The current functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study utilized a task that directly compared ME associated with two referentially discrete targets: oneself and a significant other (e.g., close friend or relative). Nineteen healthy young adult participants (mean age 24; 9 female, 10 male) were required to make yes/no decisions based on individually presented trait adjectives across two separate referential conditions and a nonreferential control condition: self-evaluation (SE), significant other-evaluation (OE), and semantic positivity-evaluation (SPE), respectively. Results of random-effects group analyses indicated a common area of medial prefrontal activation during the ME conditions of self- and other-evaluation versus the baseline semantic positivity-evaluation condition. A direct comparison of brain activation between the self and other evaluative conditions revealed a right dorsolateral prefrontal response that was significantly more active when making evaluations about the self. The present study extends upon the prior findings of separate research domains by directly comparing the cerebral response to ME about the self and others, and finding right PFC activation increases as a function of self-relevance.

Section snippets

Subjects

Nineteen right-handed, physically and cognitively healthy participants (9 females, 10 males; mean age, 24 years, SD = 3; mean education, 16 years, SD = 2) were recruited from the University of Wisconsin—Madison campus via advertisement. Before study procedures, participants were screened for MRI safety/compatibility and given a standardized questionnaire covering general health history. The exclusion criteria consisted of any chronic medical condition (e.g., neurological, cardiovascular,

Results

An analysis of response times revealed no significant differences among response time means across the three conditions (F = 0.609, P = 0.55). The average response between conditions differed by only 0.03 s. The SPE condition elicited the shortest response times (1.77 s), followed by the SE (1.79 s) and OE (1.81 s) conditions. The response type was evaluated in the SPE condition, which demonstrated an equivalent proportion of “yes” (right button) responses (mean of 50% “yes” responses). This

Discussion

The current study investigated neural activation during self-referential metacognitive evaluation (ME) by comparing two descriptor-referential trait evaluation conditions, that of self-evaluation and significant other-evaluation. When these two descriptor-referential conditions were separately compared to the same nonreferential semantic positivity-evaluation condition, both self- and other-evaluation evoked a very similar pattern of activation in the anterior medial prefrontal and

Conclusion

A number of studies including this one have now shown that ME of the self or of others activates a network involving the medial prefrontal cortex and retrosplenial cortex. The present study extends these findings by directly comparing the cerebral response during metacognitive evaluation of the self and a significant other and finding right dorsolateral prefrontal activation increases as a function of personal relevance. The right anterior prefrontal cortex has long been implicated in previous

Acknowledgements

This study was supported in part by MH65723 (SCJ). The assistance of Michael Anderle, Ron Fisher, and Natalie Rahming is greatly appreciated.

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Metacognitive evaluation, self-relevance, and the right prefrontal cortex

Abstract

Section snippets

Subjects

Results

Discussion

Conclusion

Acknowledgements

NeuroImage

Cognition

NeuroImage

Trends Cogn. Sci.

Neuropsychologia

NeuroImage

Cognition

NeuroImage

In search of the self: a positron emission tomography study

Psychol. Sci.

In search of the emotional self: an FMRI study using positive and negative emotional words

Am. J. Psychiatry

Frequency Analysis of English Usage: Lexicon and Grammar

Interacting minds—A biological basis

Science