Asymmetric projection of introspection reveals a behavioural and neural mechanism for interindividual social coordination
Open accessAbstract
When we collaborate with others to tackle novel problems, we anticipate how they will perform their part of the task to coordinate behavior effectively. We might estimate how well someone else will perform by extrapolating from estimates of how well we ourselves would perform. This account predicts that our metacognitive model should make accurate predictions when projected onto people as good as, or worse than, us but not on those whose abilities exceed our own. We demonstrate just such a pattern and that it leads to worse coordination when working with people more skilled than ourselves. Metacognitive projection is associated with a specific activity pattern in anterior lateral prefrontal cortex (alPFC47). Manipulation of alPFC47 activity altered metacognitive projection and impaired interpersonal social coordination. By contrast, monitoring of other individuals’ observable performance and outcomes is associated with a distinct pattern of activity in the posterior temporal parietal junction (TPJp). When we collaborate with others to tackle novel problems, we anticipate how they will perform their part effectively. Miyamoto et al find that metacognitive projection mediated by anterior lateral prefrontal cortex enables this social coordination.
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Several areas of the human prefrontal cortex have been linked to metacognition and confidence in addition to goal maintenance.
“Several areas of the human prefrontal cortex have been linked to metacognition and confidence in addition to goal maintenance,7”
From Two prefrontal-subcortical circuits estimate controllability and reflect its impact on learning (2026) · cites this paper as [14]
The Discussion (page not provided) links frontal regions to metacognition and confidence, and the Results link anterior lateral prefrontal activity to prospective metacognitive judgments. Our copy does not link those regions to goal maintenance, so that part of the cited sentence is unsupported. (LLM, conf=0.84)
Experimental — accuracy not yet measuredVariation in prospective confidence prior to even taking a decision determines which decision problems an individual attempts to solve in the first place.
“while variation in prospective confidence prior to even taking a decision determines which decision problems an individual attempts to solve in the first place.12”
From Two prefrontal-subcortical circuits estimate controllability and reflect its impact on learning (2026) · cites this paper as [14]
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Two prefrontal-subcortical circuits estimate controllability and reflect its impact on learning
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- Authors
- Miyamoto, K., Harbison, C., Tanaka, S., Saito, M., Luo, S., Matsui, S., Sankhe, P., Mahmoodi, A., Lin, M., Trudel, N., Shea, N., & Rushworth, M. F. S.
- Affiliations
- RIKEN Center for Brain Science (JP)
- University of Oxford (GB)
- Wellcome Centre for Human Neuroimaging (GB)
- University of London (GB)
- Corresponding author
- Miyamoto, Kentaro
- ORCID
- Venue
- Nature Communications
- Published
- 2025-01-20
- Volume
- 16
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 295-295
- ISSN
- 2041-1723 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC11747205
- OpenAlex
- W4406624133
- Cited by
- 4
- References
- 42
- Citations by year
- 2026: 4
- FWCI
- 4.40
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Nature Communications (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- SAS-Space (University of London) (acceptedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
- UCL Discovery (University College London) (submittedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
- RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
- MPG.PuRe (Max Planck Society) (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- Japan Agency for Medical Research and Development (Brain/MINDS2.0, JP23wm0625001)
- Wellcome Trust (221794/Z/20/Z)
- European Commission (HORIZON2020)
- Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (JP23H03843, JP22H00092, JP22K18665, DC1/PD)
- Medical Research Council (MR/P024955/1)
- Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (24K22795, 24KF0091, JP23H03843, 22K18665, 22H00092)
- RIKEN
- H2020 European Research Council (681422)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Action Observation and Synchronization
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Neural and Behavioral Psychology Studies
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Developmental and Educational Psychology › Child and Animal Learning Development
- Keywords
- self-reflection, social coordination, collaborative problem solving, metacognition, individual differences in ability, neural basis of social cognition
- MeSH terms
- Metacognition, Adult, Brain Mapping, Cooperative Behavior, Female, Humans, Interpersonal Relations, Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Male, Parietal Lobe, Social Behavior, Temporal Lobe, Prefrontal Cortex, Young Adult
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