Metacognition and Cognitive Flexibility in Autistic and Neurotypically-Developing Populations.

This research looked at how well autistic people understand their own thinking and adapt to changes. Surprisingly, autistic participants were better at knowing when they might make mistakes in visual tasks, even though they were less accurate overall. Both autistic and non-autistic people learned new rules equally well and adapted to changes similarly. The study suggests that being overconfident, not poor self-awareness, might make it harder to be flexible in thinking.

This study examined metacognition (awareness of one's own thinking) and cognitive flexibility in autistic and neurotypical individuals using 3D mental rotation and trading game tasks. Contrary to expectations, autistic participants demonstrated superior metacognitive efficiency in visuospatial tasks, showing better awareness of when they might make errors despite lower overall accuracy. No differences in learning efficiency or cognitive flexibility were found between groups. The research challenges the hypothesis that metacognitive deficits cause cognitive inflexibility in autism.

Instead, overconfidence in decisions was associated with reduced cognitive flexibility in both groups, suggesting overconfidence rather than metacognitive deficits may impact adaptability.

Findings suggest autistic individuals may have intact or superior metacognitive abilities in certain domains, challenging deficit-focused models. Interventions targeting overconfidence rather than metacognitive deficits may be more effective for improving cognitive flexibility. Assessment approaches should consider potential metacognitive strengths in visuospatial domains.

Sample size not reported, limiting generalizability. Single study design without replication. Tasks focused on specific cognitive domains (visuospatial, rule-learning) may not represent broader metacognitive abilities. Lack of detail about participant characteristics and diagnostic criteria.

Whether and how metacognition is altered in individuals with autistic spectrum disorder (ASD) is intensely debated. Metacognitive deficit is claimed to be related to cognitive inflexibility, accounting for restrictive behaviors in ASD individuals. We wanted to test this hypothesis by measuring metacognition in ASD and in matched neurotypically developing (TD) control samples in a task that relies on visuo-spatial cognition, in which ASD allegedly have an advantage. We measured metacognition in a 3D mental rotation task.

Additionally, we administered a trading game: players had to figure out the rules for maximizing the profit on each transaction. These rules changed in the middle of the game, which required that players modify their strategy to keep the profit at maximum. We measured both learning efficiency (how fast players extract the rules) and re-learning speed (cognitive flexibility, how fast learners could adjust their behavioral responses after rules are changed). TD outperform ASD individuals in terms of accuracy in mental rotation but exhibited lower metacognitive efficiency (i.e., were less aware when they were more likely to make an error).

No differences in learning efficiency and cognitive flexibility between TD and ASD individuals were observed. Neither did we observe an association between cognitive flexibility and metacognition. Nevertheless, both in ASD and TD populations, overconfidence in one's decisions is negatively correlated with cognitive flexibility, but not with learning efficiency. ASD individuals can have superior metacognition in tasks that rely on visuo-spatial cognition.

Cognitive flexibility is diminished by overconfidence, not by metacognitive deficit.