Are we not so special after all?

Your ability to know what you know or don’t know — and how confident you are in what you think you know — is called metacognition. It seems that only we, humans have such a sophisticated understanding of our own knowledge.

Metacognitive Illusions In Monkeys

However, it may not be true, according to an interesting study. Monkeys had higher confidence in their ability to remember an image when the visual contrast was high. These kinds of metacognitive illusions — false beliefs about how we learn or remember best — are shared by humans, leading brain and cognitive scientists to believe that metacognition could have an evolutionary basis, so we may share with some animals.

We can also add that it somehow shakes our confidence in the uniqueness of our intelligence. How does this affect our conclusions regarding the meaning of life? It may be worth further investigation.

Monkey sees … monkey knows? A metacognitive illusion in monkeys

Meaning of Life Team

This post is also available in: Hungarian