Metacognitive feelings are affective experiences that concern the subject’s mental processes and capacities. Paradigmatic examples include the feeling of familiarity, the feeling of confidence, or the tip-of-the-tongue experience. In this article, we advance an account of metacognitive feelings based on the predictive-processing framework. The core tenet of predictive processing is that the brain is a hierarchical hypothesis-testing mechanism, predicting sensory input on the basis of prior experience and updating predictions on the basis of the incoming prediction error. According to the proposed account, metacognitive feelings arise out of a process in which visceral changes serve as cues to predict the error dynamics relating to a particular mental process. The expected rate of prediction-error reduction corresponds to the valence at the core of the emerging metacognitive feeling. Metacognitive feelings use prediction dynamics to model the agent’s situation in a way that is both descriptive and directive. Thus, metacognitive feelings are not only an appraisal of ongoing cognitive performance but also a set of action policies. These action policies span predictive trajectories across bodily action, mental action, and interoceptive changes, which together transform the epistemic landscape within which metacognitive feelings unfold.

中文翻译：

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元认知感受：预测处理的视角


元认知感受是涉及主体心理过程和能力的情感体验。范例包括熟悉感、自信感或舌尖体验。在本文中，我们基于预测处理框架提出了对元认知感受的解释。预测处理的核心原则是，大脑是一个分层的假设检验机制，根据先前的经验预测感官输入，并根据传入的预测误差更新预测。根据所提出的解释，元认知感受是在一个过程中产生的，在这个过程中，内脏变化充当预测与特定心理过程相关的错误动态的线索。预测误差减少的预期速率对应于新兴元认知感觉的核心价。元认知感受使用预测动态以描述性和指导性的方式对代理的情况进行建模。因此，元认知感受不仅是对持续认知表现的评估，也是一套行动策略。这些行动政策跨越了身体行动、心理行动和内感受变化的预测轨迹，它们共同改变了元认知感受展开的认知景观。