Metacognitive training increases sensitivity to neural correlates of internal uncertainty during decision-making

Interventions that increase metacognitive awareness have the potential to improve decision-making. However, the effects of such interventions on the neural mechanisms which regulate decision-making and metacognition have thus far remained unexplored. Here, we developed a novel training paradigm aimed at increasing metacognitive awareness by manipulating participants’ ability to use sensory information to guide their decision-making. Before and after training, we assessed the relationship between neural correlates of decision-making, measured using electroencephalography (EEG), and participants’ metacognitive judgements on a near-transfer 2AFC motion-discrimination task. Participants performed better and exhibited higher metacognitive sensitivity following training. Moreover, training strengthened the relationship between neural correlates of evidence accumulation and metacognitive judgments, reflecting participants’ increased sensitivity to decision quality. Our work demonstrates that training can alter the metacognitive readout of internal uncertainty during decision-making in the service of superior performance.