Inference about Absence as a Window into the Mental Self-Model

To represent something as absent, one must know that they would have known if it was present. This form of counterfactual reasoning critically relies on a mental self-model: a simplified schema of one’s own cognition, which specifies expected perceptual and cognitive states under different world states and affords better monitoring and control over cognitive resources. Here I propose to use inference about absence as a unique window into the structure and function of the mental self-model. In contrast to commonly used paradigms, using inference about absence bypasses the need for explicit metacognitive reports. I draw on findings from low-level perception, spatial attention, and episodic memory, in support of the idea that self knowledge is a computational bottleneck for efficient inference about absence, making inference about absence a cross-cutting framework for probing key features of the mental self-model that are not accessible for introspection.