UC San Diego

A metacognitive mental state or process takes another mental state or process as its intentional object. Reality testing is the ability to distinguish one’s own perceptual mental states from imagination or episodic memory. I argue that reality testing is a metacognitive ability and that creatures that lack mental state concepts can perform reality testing. This entails that reality testing is a nonconceptual metacognitive ability. I offer a novel account reality of testing in terms of sensorimotor contingencies. This explains how reality testing is accomplished without the use of mental state concepts.