Domain-specific updating of metacognitive self-beliefs

Metacognitive self-monitoring of our abilities is vital for healthy cognitive functioning. This capacity to correlate subjective feelings of uncertainty with explicit self-beliefs about cognitive ability is believed to rely on a domain-general cognitive hierarchy. While substantial research supports the domain-generality of metacognitive ability, less is understood about how self-beliefs are maintained and modified in response to experiences of uncertainty. We sought to fill this knowledge gap by investigating metacognitive belief updating across memory, visual, and general knowledge domains, including nutrition and socioeconomic judgments, both before and after metacognitive testing. Our study revealed that participants significantly reduced their self-belief (i.e., expressed less confidence in their abilities) across all domains after completing the task battery. Through psychological network and cross-correlation analyses, we found that while metacognitive confidence exhibited domain generality, metacognitive belief updating was highly domain-specific. Our findings indicate that experiences of uncertainty prompt a shift in self-priors from a more general focus to a more specific one.