Academic literature on the topic 'Metamemory judgements'

People base judgements about their own memory processes on probabilistic cues such as the characteristics of study materials and study conditions. While research has largely focused on how single cues affect metamemory judgements, a recent study by Undorf, Söllner, and Bröder found that multiple cues affected people’s predictions of their future memory performance (judgements of learning, JOLs). The present research tested whether this finding was indeed due to strategic integration of multiple cues in JOLs or, alternatively, resulted from people’s reliance on a single unified feeling of ease. In Experiments 1 and 2, we simultaneously varied concreteness and emotionality of word pairs and solicited (a) pre-study JOLs that could be based only on the manipulated cues and (b) immediate JOLs that could be based both on the manipulated cues and on a feeling of ease. The results revealed similar amounts of cue integration in pre-study JOLs and immediate JOLs, regardless of whether cues varied in two easily distinguishable levels (Experiment 1) or on a continuum (Experiment 2). This suggested that people strategically integrated multiple cues in their immediate JOLs. Experiment 3 provided further evidence for this conclusion by showing that false explicit information about cue values affected immediate JOLs over and above actual cue values. Hence, we conclude that cue integration in JOLs involves strategic processes.

When predicting future performance on tests over text material, do individuals estimate retention in addition to assessing comprehension? In Experiment 1, participants either rated their comprehension or predicted performance for each text, with lower ratings indicating lower confidence either in comprehension or in eventual performance. Judgement magnitude was significantly lower for performance predictions than for comprehension ratings, suggesting that predictions were based partly on retention estimates. In Experiment 2, predictions varied with anticipated test delay (15 min or 2 weeks) whereas comprehension ratings did not, providing further evidence that individuals estimate retention when predicting performance. Analyses of individual differences suggest that both good and poor performers incorporate retention estimates when predicting performance, but better performers do so in a more discriminative manner. Implications for theory of metacognitive judgements are discussed.

Past research has shown that the perceptual characteristics of studied items (e.g., font size) lead to a metamemory illusion, and that delayed judgements of learning (JOLs) are better predictors of memory performance than immediate JOLs. Here, we tested whether delayed JOLs could reduce or eliminate the effect of perceptual characteristics on JOLs and restudy decisions. We adopted a meta-analytic approach and analysed the results of 28 experiments in which participants’ studied items were presented in either large or small font. JOLs and, sometimes, restudy decisions were collected either immediately or after a delay. Finally, participants completed a memory test. The results of the meta-analyses confirmed the effect of the font size on JOLs and restudy decisions. The delayed procedures reliably reduced the effect of perceptual characteristics on JOLs, but the effect was still significant after a delay. For restudy decisions, delayed procedures only reduced numerically the effect. Surprisingly, the meta-analysis also showed a very subtle memory advantage for items presented in large font over small font, although no individual study showed a significant difference and the overall effect size was small. One plausible explanation is that after a delay, information about font size is not available for some items, causing a reduction in the effect. Moreover, our results suggest that the dissociation between memory and metamemory reported previously may not be dissociation at all, but a mistmatched effect of font size on memory and metamemory.

Metacognition supports reflection upon and control of other cognitive processes. Despite metacognition occupying a central role in human psychology, its neural substrates remain underdetermined, partly due to study-specific differences in task domain and type of metacognitive judgement under study. It is also unclear how metacognition relates to other apparently similar abilities that depend on recursive thought such as theory of mind or mentalising. Now that neuroimaging studies of metacognition are more prevalent, we have an opportunity to characterise consistencies in neural substrates identified across different analysis types and domains. Here we used quantitative activation likelihood estimation methods to synthesise findings from 47 neuroimaging studies on metacognition, divided into categories based on the target of metacognitive evaluation (memory and decision-making), analysis type (judgement-related activation, confidence-related activation, and predictors of metacognitive sensitivity), and, for metamemory judgements, temporal focus (prospective and retrospective). A domain-general network, including medial and lateral prefrontal cortex, precuneus, and insula was associated with the level of confidence in self-performance in both decision-making and memory tasks. We found preferential engagement of right anterior dorsolateral prefrontal cortex in metadecision experiments and bilateral parahippocampal cortex in metamemory experiments. Results on metacognitive sensitivity were inconclusive, likely due to fewer studies reporting this contrast. Finally, by comparing our results to meta-analyses of mentalising, we obtain evidence for common engagement of the ventromedial and anterior dorsomedial prefrontal cortex in both metacognition and mentalising, suggesting that these regions may support second-order representations for thinking about the thoughts of oneself and others.

Metacognition researchers have recently begun to examine the effects of framing judgements of learning (JOLs) in terms of forgetting (rather than remembering) on the judgements' magnitude and accuracy. Although a promising new direction for the study of metamemory, initial studies have yielded inconsistent results. To help resolve these inconsistencies, in four experiments we had college students ( N = 434) study paired associates and make JOLs framed in terms of either remembering or forgetting over two study–test trials. Our goals were to further document the effects of framing on the magnitude and accuracy of JOLs and to consider explanations for why specific patterns tend to emerge. The present experiments provide evidence that (a) judgements of forgetting are psychologically anchored at the midpoint of the JOL scale, whereas judgements of remembering are anchored at a lower point, (b) differences in absolute accuracy (calibration) by frame are largely artefactual and stem from differences in anchoring, (c) differences in JOL magnitude and absolute accuracy by frame do not obtain when memory cues are salient to participants, and (d) a forget frame impairs the relative accuracy (resolution) of JOLs across trials by reducing participants' reliance on cues such as memory for past test performance.

BackgroundIn previous studies we suggested that liberal acceptance (LA) represents a fundamental cognitive bias in schizophrenia and may explain why patients are more willing to accept weak response alternatives and display overconfidence in incorrect responses. The aim of the present study was to test a central assumption of the LA account: false alarms in schizophrenia should be particularly increased when the distractor–target resemblance is weak relative to a control group.MethodSixty-eight schizophrenia patients were compared to 25 healthy controls on a visual memory task. At encoding, participants studied eight complex displays, each consisting of a unique pairing of four stimulus attributes: symbol, shape, position and colour. At recognition, studied items were presented along with distractors that resembled the targets to varying degrees (i.e. the match between distractors and targets ranged from one to three attributes). Participants were required to make old/new judgements graded for confidence.ResultsThe hypotheses were confirmed: false recognition was increased for patients compared to controls for weakly and moderately related distractors only, whereas strong lure items induced similar levels of false recognition for both groups. In accordance with prior research, patients displayed a significantly reduced confidence gap and enhanced knowledge corruption compared to controls. Finally, higher neuroleptic dosage was related to a decreased number of high-confident ratings.ConclusionsThese data assert that LA is a core mechanism contributing to both enhanced acceptance of weakly supported response alternatives and metamemory deficits, and this may be linked to the emergence of positive symptomatology.

Contemporary theories of learning suggest that successful learners are active in the learning process and that they tend to use a number of metacognitive processes to monitor learning and remembering. Drawing on the theoretical framework of Nelson and Narens (1992), the current study examined the effect of certain variables on metamemory processes and on students' ability to recall and recognise learned material. The present study explored the effect of four independent variables on five dependent variables. The independent variables were: 1. degree of learning (responses given until 2 or 8 times correct), 2. judgment of learning (JOL) timing (given immediately after learning session or 24 hours later), 3. retention interval between study and test (2 or 6 weeks), and 4. type of material studied (sentences, in or out of context). The dependent variables were: 1. judgement of learning (JOL), 2. confidence rating, 3. feeling of knowing (FOK), 4. recall, and 5. recognition.. As ancillary analyses, the study explored, firstly, whether gender differences had an effect on meta-level and object-level memory, and secondly, whether students who recalled more also made more accurate metamemory judgements. The effects of the independent variables on recall and recognition were consistent with those found by previous studies. The most interesting new finding of the present study was that students who made JOLs after twenty four hours were more likely to take into account the effect of the interval between learning and testing. Students who made immediate JOLs did not allow for the effect of the time interval on retention. A further new finding was that gender appeared to have had an influence on JOLs. The findings about the effects of timing of JOLs and of gender effects on JOL have implications for metacognitive theory and will stimulate further research. The practical significance of this research, particularly the implications for study skills training for all students, was that educators cannot presume that students will correctly predict what they will recall after six weeks if they make that judgement immediately after learning has occurred. Therefore, the effects of the passage of time on memory, and the efficacy of delaying judgments, should be made explicit. The finding that the manipulation of JOL timing has a significant effect on the accuracy of judgements has implications in the wider area of educational policymaking and for the current debate on competencies and quality assurance. Learning cannot be considered a simple process and when a large component of learning is selfdirected, as it is in tertiary institutions and increasingly in schools, many variables are operating.

La métacognition et en particulier les jugements métacognitifs ont été largement étudiés de façon séparée dans le domaine de la mémoire épisodique (métamémoire) ou de la perception visuelle (métaperception). Malgré cette tradition historique d’évaluer la métacognition de façon disparate, des similitudes dans les cadres méthodologiques et théoriques peuvent être observées et des travaux récents proposent de comparer les jugements métacognitifs à travers une variété de tâches (nommés tâches de premier ordre) proposant l'idée que la métacognition pourrait être domaine-général. Dans cette thèse, nous nous sommes concentrés sur la « cue-utilization view » issue de la littérature sur la métamémoire afin d’explorer l’étendue de la métacognition via deux études corrélationnelles et trois études expérimentales. En particulier, nous avons cherché à savoir si les individus utilisent une ressource commune dans leurs jugements métacognitifs pour différents types de tâches de premier ordre et si cette ressource est également partagée entre différents jugements métacognitifs. De plus, nous nous sommes concentrés sur l'indice métacognitif de fluence comme un potentiel indice domaine-général dans la formation des jugements métacognitifs. Dans l'ensemble, nos résultats suggèrent que, alors que les jugements prospectifs sont domaine-spécifiques, les jugements rétrospectifs peuvent être sous-tendus par une ressource commune. L'étude de l'implication de l’indice de fluence suggère une influence différente de ce signal sur le type de tâche de premier ordre et le type de jugement de métacognition suggérant que l'effet de fluidité est moins systématique qu'on ne le pensait auparavant. À la lumière de ces résultats, nous proposons une nouvelle approche quant à la formation de jugements métacognitifs dans le but d’avoir une vision plus unifiée de la recherche sur la métacognition. Enfin, nous suggérons des implications à la fois pour la recherche sur la mémoire de reconnaissance et pour la recherche en neuropsychologie et en psychiatrie
Metacognition and especially metacognitive judgments have been largely studied within separate cognitive fields such as episodic memory (metamemory) or visual perception (metaperception). Despite this historical tradition of evaluating metacognition in a disparate manner, similarities in methodological and theoretical frameworks can be observed and recent work compares metacognitive judgements across a variety of tasks (first-order task), proposing the idea that metacognition could be domain-general. This thesis focuses on the cue-utilization view stemming from the metamemory literature to explore the breadth of metacognition across two correlational and three experimental studies. In particular, we investigated whether people use a common resource in their metacognitive judgements across different types of first-order tasks and whether this resource is also shared across different metacognitive judgements. Moreover, we focused on the metacognitive cue of fluency as a potential domain-general cue in the formation of metacognitive judgements. Overall, our results suggest that whereas prospective judgements are domain-specific, retrospective judgements can be supported by a domain-general resource. The study of the involvement of fluency suggests differing influence of this cue on both the type of first-order task and the type of metacognition judgement. This suggests that fluency effects are less homogeneous than previously thought. In light of these results, we propose a novel approach of metacognitive judgment formation in order to have a more unified view of metacognitive research. Finally, we suggest implications for both research on recognition memory and neuropsychological and psychiatric research

It is well established that patients with temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE) commonly report memory difficulties. The aim of this thesis was to use a novel approach adopting Nelson & Narens' (1990) theoretical framework to investigate whether metacognitive knowledge and memory performance were differentially disrupted in patients with TLE. More specifically, investigating to what extent poor memory in TLE could result from inadequate metamemory monitoring, inadequate metamemory control or both. Experiment I employed a combined Judgement-of-Learning and Feeling-of-Knowing task to investigate whether participants could monitor their memory successfully at both the item-by-item and global levels. The results revealed a dissociation between memory and metamemory in TLE patients. TLE patients presented with a clear episodic memory deficit compared with controls yet preserved metamemory abilities. Experiments 2 and 3 explored the sensitivity approach to examine metacognitive processes that operate during encoding in TLE patients and controls. Both these experiments demonstrated that TLE patients were sensitive to monitoring and control processes at encoding. The final experiment further investigated memory performance by examining the role of lateralisation of the seizure focus using material specific information and the 'Remember-Know' paradigm. The findings from the verbal task provided partial support to the material-specific hypothesis. The results from these experiments are discussed in terms of their association with executive functioning and memory deficits in TLE, and have important implications for future research examining memory and metamemory in TLE patients and other clinical populations.

"The present experiment examines how instructions (absolute judgement vs. relative judgement) affect the performance in simultaneous lineups (present perpetrator and absent perpetrator). To find out whether the participants really followed the instructions, their eye movements were recorded when they faced the photo lineup. Sixty participants (44 women and 16 men) took part in the experiment. Overall, the results showed that participants with absolute judgement instructions made significantly less inter-photograph comparisons than those with relative judgement instructions. In the present perpetrator lineup, hit rate was lower for participants with absolute judgement instructions than with relative judgement instructions. In the absent perpetrator lineup, no differences were between both instruction conditions. Furthermore, as was expected, no relationship was found between “pre” and “post” confidence and accuracy in the lineups. Moreover, we examined participants’ metamemory evaluations about their examination pattern of the photographs in the lineup. Our results did not show high incongruity between the own participants’ judgment and their visual behavior."