What Is the Relationship between Metacognition and Mental Effort in Executive Functions? The Contribution of Neurophysiology

Abstract

Prolonged cognitive effort can be considered one of the core determinants of mental fatigue and may negatively affect the efficacy and efficiency of cognitive performance. Metacognition—understood as a multi-componential set of skills concerning awareness and control of one’s own cognition—might reduce such negative outcomes. This study aimed to explore the relation between metacognitive skills, neurocognitive performance, and the level of mental effort as mirrored by electrophysiological (EEG) markers of cognitive load and task demand. A challenging cognitive task was used to prompt and collect metacognition reports, performance data (accuracy and response times—RTs), and physiological markers of mental effort (task-related changes of spectral power for standard EEG frequency bands) via wearable EEG. Data analysis highlighted that different aspects of metacognitive skills are associated with performance as measured by, respectively, accuracy and RTs. Furthermore, specific aspects of metacognitive skills were found to be consistently correlated with EEG markers of cognitive effort, regardless of increasing task demands. Finally, behavioral metrics mirroring the efficiency of information processing were found to be associated with different EEG markers of cognitive effort depending on the low or high demand imposed by the task.