Humans are curious not just about the world, but also about their own minds. In our new paper, we describe a specific form of curiosity in which people strategically seek information not only about their decisions but also about the accuracy of their self-evaluations. psycnet.apa.org/fulltext/202...

Essentially, it’s all about being curious about how accurately we can introspect our cognitive process. We propose that this could be achieved by weighing perception against metacognition and seeking feedback on the one with the subjectively least evidence. (6/8)

Participants preferred metacognitive to perceptual feedback more than 40% of the time. This wasn't random; it was driven by how participants internally evaluated their own metacognition. They sought more feedback when they sensed their metacognition was off track. (5/8)

To separate out this curiosity, we designed a paradigm that distinguishes between information about perception and metacognition. We offered the participants the option to seek feedback on either perceptual or metacognitive accuracy, but always at the expense of the other. (4/8)