Awareness that one is in an experiential state is then said to render that state (transiently) metaconscious. Meta-Concious thought is sometimes referred to as “higher-order thought”; for example, thinking about thinking, experiencing experience, etc. $

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Meta-conscious mental processes are those that are re-represented. Mental content can be “meta-conscious” (or “meta-aware”) and be explicitly represented as a content of one’s own consciousness Thus, explicit monitoring level (metaconsciousness) acts in effect like the pilot of an airplane. Although the autopilot system can handle mild adjustments due to normal shifts in wind and other conditions, when anything major occurs, the pilot is still needed to handle the situation.

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Metaconsciousness involves the intermittent rerepresentation of the contents of consciousness and can be said to correspond to conscious states in which the content of those states includes an explicit characterization of what is currently being experienced. In other words, metaconsciousness is simply a kind, albeit a very important kind, of conscious experience in which the focus of thought is turned on to itself. 

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Meta-awareness can be thought of as a subtype of a larger category of mental phenomenon known as “metacognition.” Metacognition corresponds to our knowledge about what we know. The term was introduced by John Flavell in the context of studying children’s capacities for monitoring their cognitions. Flavell distinguished two general classes of metacognition. The first was metacognitive knowledge, or in other words understanding how thought operates in the world. Belief that rehearsal improves memory falls under this category of metacognitive knowledge. The second class was metacognitive experiences, which was more focused on the feelings associated with metacognition. The feeling that a sought for word is on the “tip of one’s tongue” falls under this heading.

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Schooler (2002) proposed a distinction between ‘basic consciousness’ and ‘meta-consciousness’. Basic consciousness, which is defined as cognitive processing that includes “perceptions, feelings, and non-reflective cognitions”, is said to be a continuous process that occurs throughout our waking hours. Meta-consciousness, on the other hand, is said to be a ‘monitoring system’ that is engaged intermittently to evaluate the contents of basic consciousness and to consider the relation of such contents to the goals of the individual. According to Schooler (2002), it is meta-consciousness (or ‘meta-awareness’) that allows an individual to become aware of periods of mind wandering.

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