Few people tackle the neural or computational basis of qualitative experience (Frith, 2019). Why? One major reason is that science and philosophy have both struggled to propose how we might even begin to start studying it. Here I propose that metacognitive computations, and the subjective feelings that go along with them, give us a solid starting point. Specifically, perceptual metacognition possesses unique properties that provide a powerful and unique opportunity for studying the neural and computational correlates of subjective experience, falling into three categories: (1) Metacognition is subjective: there is something it is like to feel ‘confident’; (2) Metacognitive processes are objectively characterizable: We can objectively observe metacognitive reports and define computational models to fit to empirical data; (3) Metacognition has multiple hierarchically-dependent “anchors”, presenting a unique computational opportunity for developing sensitive, specific models. I define this Metacognition as a Step Toward Explaining Phenomenology (M-STEP) approach to state that, given these properties, computational models of metacognition represent an empirically-tractable early step in identifying the generative process that constructs qualitative experience. By applying decades of developments in computational cognitive science and formal computational model comparisons to the specific properties of perceptual metacognition, we may reveal new and exciting insights about how the brain constructs subjective conscious experiences and the nature of those experiences themselves.
How hard is cognitive science?
