Metacognition as Cerebral Interoception: A Position Paper on Cognitive Sense as a Novel Sensory Modality

This position paper proposes that metacognition—the capacity to monitor and evaluate one's own cognitive processes—may be better understood as a form of interoception rather than recursive cognition. Drawing on phenomenological reports from both historical figures and first-person experience, I argue that the brain possesses interoceptive capacity for its own processing states, which I term 'cognitive sense.' This hypothesis addresses a taxonomic gap in sensory modality classification and offers testable predictions for neuroscientific investigation. The paper incorporates critical distinctions between related phenomena (hyperphantasia vs. cognitive sense), linguistic evidence from cross-cultural idioms, and connections to synesthesia research.