Metacognitive biases in anxious-depression and compulsivity extend across perception and memory

Metacognitive biases are characteristic of common mental health disorders like depression and obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). However, recent transdiagnostic approaches consistently contradict traditional clinical studies, with overconfidence in perception among highly compulsive individuals versus underconfident memory in OCD patients. To reconcile these differences, we investigated whether these metacognitive divergences arise due to cognitive domain-specific effects, comorbid overshadowing effects, and/or different manifestations at disparate levels of a metacognitive hierarchy. Using a transdiagnostic individual differences approach (N=327), we quantified metacognitive patterns across memory and perception. Across cognitive domains, we found that underconfidence was linked to anxious-depression and overconfidence was linked to compulsivity. These associations varied across the confidence hierarchy, with anxious-depression being predominantly explained by global low self-esteem, whereas compulsivity exhibited more specific alterations at lower metacognitive levels. Our results support a domain-general alteration of metacognition in psychopathology, with differential contributions from distinct levels of a metacognitive hierarchy, akin to an overshadowing effect.