Age-related shifts in metacognition are driven by converging confidence for correct and error judgments across the lifespan
Lenard Dome, Madeleine Moses-Payne, Vasilisa Skvortsova, Tobias U. Hauser
PsyArXiv. 2026. Journal article
https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/ugb9s_v1
Introspective accuracy shapes self-determined decisions, yet how it changes across the lifespan is unresolved. The evidence at the extremes of adolescence and old age points in conflicting directions. In a unique lifespan dataset N=6,000 spanning 10-90 years, we traced age-related effects of perceptual metacognition. Using piecewise regression, we found that metacognitive sensitivity, tracking how well confidence distinguishes between correct and erroneous decisions, followed a biphasic trajectory with a peak in adolescence and a steady decline towards older age. Critically, we found two distinct drivers for this biphasic trajectory: whilst confidence in correct decisions increased early in life, plateauing after adolescence, confidence in erroneous responses continued to rise throughout life, driving the metacognitive decline later in life. This means that metacognition is stratified rather than unitary, where correct and error confidence operates with distinct lifespan profiles, a critical insight when considering how to support impoverished metacognition at either end of the lifespan.