Impaired Explicit and Preserved Implicit Metacognition in High Dysfunctional Metacognitive Beliefs: An Eye-Tracking Study in Mock-Crime

This study tested whether eyewitness confidence reflects memory accuracy and whether implicit metacognitive indicators provide objective value in assessing credibility. We compared explicit metacognition (subjective memory confidence) and implicit metacognition (reaction time, eye-tracking-based attentional bias indicators) in individuals with high (HMB) vs. low (LMB) dysfunctional metacognitive beliefs. Participants were 115 Korean undergraduates classified into HMB or LMB by MCQ-30 scores. All viewed a 2 min 30 s mock-crime video and then completed a Three-Alternative Forced Choice (3AFC) task about the video. An eye tracker recorded reaction time, dwell time, and time to first fixation on the correct area of interest (AOI); participants also rated confidence each trial. Explicit metacognition analyses showed HMB underestimated confidence on easy trials, with no group difference on hard trials. Implicit indicators did not differ between groups, indicating unconscious confidence signals were similar regardless of group or task difficulty. Thus, even when eyewitnesses report low subjective confidence, implicit indicators can add information about testimony credibility, and explicit and implicit indices play complementary roles in evaluating eyewitness credibility.