Endogenous Attention Effects on Metacognitive Awareness: A Pilot DLPFC-cTBS Study

Background: Visual metacognitive sensitivity may depend on prior expectations, which are shaped by top-down attentional control via the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC).Objective/hypothesis: In Experiment 1, we employed a well-established two-alternative forced-choice discrimination task with Posner cueing to test whether spatial attention modulates perceptual metacognition. In Experiment 2, we applied bilateral continuous theta-burst transcranial magnetic stimulation (cTBS) over the DLPFC and a control site to assess whether the DLPFC is critical for this attentional modulation.Methods: In Experiment 1, a within-subjects design was used with two simultaneous adaptive staircases for valid and invalid trials to control task difficulty, while reaction times, signal detection theory metrics and metacognitive efficiency were measured. In Experiment 2, the same task was performed in two sessions spaced by a week following cTBS over the DLPFC or control cortices, adding non-parametric metacognitive and cognitive control measures.Results: In Experiment 1, objective performance was successfully stabilized while leaving subjective responses unconstrained. Reaction times, response bias, and metacognitive efficiency were all impaired following invalid cues. In Experiment 2, the same pattern was observed after S1-cTBS, but critically, DLPFC-cTBS erased these attentional effects, indicating that DLPFC disruption selectively impairs the modulation of metacognitive monitoring. Trial-history analyses further corroborated that the DLPFC supports conflict-adaptation across trials.Conclusion(s): These findings suggest that the DLPFC does not generate perceptual contents directly but is essential for the top-down processes that shape metacognitive monitoring. Disrupting DLPFC function reduces attentional benefits and conflict-adaptation in metacognition, highlighting its critical role in linking expectations to self-evaluative awareness.