Metacognition is the capacity to reflect upon and evaluate cognition and behaviour. Long of interest to philosophers and psychologists, metacognition has recently become the target of research in the cognitive neurosciences. By combining brain imaging, computational modeling, neuropsychology and insights from psychiatry, the present book offers a picture of the metacognitive functions of the brain.

Chapters cover the definition and measurement of metacognition in humans and non-human animals, the computational underpinnings of metacognitive judgments the cognitive neuroscience of self-monitoring ranging from confidence to error-monitoring and neuropsychiatric studies of disorders of metacognition.

This book provides an invaluable overview of a rapidly emerging and important field within cognitive neuroscience.

In the World Library of Psychologists series, international experts themselves present career-long collections of what they judge to be their finest pieces - extracts from books, key articles, salient research findings, and their major practical theoretical contributions. Christopher D. Frith has an international reputation as an eminent scholar and pioneer in the fields of schizophrenia, consciousness, and social cognition. A specially written introduction gives an overview of his career and contextualises the selection in relation to changes in the field during this time. This collection reflects the various directions of Frith's work, which has become increasingly philosophically oriented throughout his career, and enables the reader to trace major developments in these areas over the last forty years. Frith has had his work nominated for the Royal Society Science Book Award and, in 2009, was awarded the Fyssen Foundation Prize for his work on neuropsychology. He has also been awarded several prestigious prizes for his collaborative work with Uta Frith. This book is an essential read for those students and researchers engaged in the fields of social cognition, cognitive psychology and consciousness studies.

Metacognition is the capacity to reflect upon and evaluate cognition and behaviour. Long of interest to philosophers and psychologists, metacognition has recently become the target of research in the cognitive neurosciences. By combining brain imaging, computational modeling, neuropsychology and insights from psychiatry, the present book offers a picture of the metacognitive functions of the brain. Chapters cover the definition and measurement of metacognition in humans and non-human animals, the computational underpinnings of metacognitive judgments the cognitive neuroscience of self-monitoring ranging from confidence to error-monitoring and neuropsychiatric studies of disorders of metacognition. This book provides an invaluable overview of a rapidly emerging and important field within cognitive neuroscience.

In the World Library of Psychologists series, international experts themselves present career-long collections of what they judge to be their finest pieces - extracts from books, key articles, salient research findings, and their major practical theoretical contributions. Christopher D. Frith has an international reputation as an eminent scholar and pioneer in the fields of schizophrenia, consciousness, and social cognition. A specially written introduction gives an overview of his career and contextualises the selection in relation to changes in the field during this time. This collection reflects the various directions of Frith's work, which has become increasingly philosophically oriented throughout his career, and enables the reader to trace major developments in these areas over the last forty years. Frith has had his work nominated for the Royal Society Science Book Award and, in 2009, was awarded the Fyssen Foundation Prize for his work on neuropsychology. He has also been awarded several prestigious prizes for his collaborative work with Uta Frith. This book is an essential read for those students and researchers engaged in the fields of social cognition, cognitive psychology and consciousness studies.

Humans, like other primates, are intensely social creatures. One of the major functions of our brains must be to enable us to be as skilful in social interactions as we are in our interactions with the physical world (e.g. recognising objects and grasping them). Furthermore, any differences between human brains and those of our nearest relatives, the great apes, are likely to be linked to our unique achievements in social interaction and communication rather than our motor or perceptual skills. Unique to humans is the ability to mentalise (or mind read), that is to perceive and communicate mental states, such as beliefs and desires. A key problem facing science is to uncover the biological mechanisms underlying our ability to read other minds and to show how these mechanisms evolved. To solve this problem we need to do experiments in which people (or animals) interact with one another rather than behaving in isolation. Such experiments are now being conducted in increasing numbers and many of the leading exponents of such experiments have contributed to this volume. 'The Neuroscience of Social Interactions' will be an important step in uncovering the biological mechanisms underlying social interactions - undoubtedly one of the major programmes for neuroscience in the 21st century.