Definition of Metacognition:
- “knowing about knowing”
- knowledge and awareness of your own cognitive processes, how they function,
when it’s likely to falter, etc.
“I don’t recall”
“I understood this fairly well”
“I won’t be able to solve this problem right away”
“I can’t study with the TV on”
“Her name is on the tip of my tongue”
Metacognitive Awareness and Monitoring:
- retrospective monitoring
- judgments about what was previously retrieved from memory
- e.g. confidence judgments
- prospective monitoring
- predictive about information available or to be retrieved from memory
- judgments about future responding
3 Types of Prospective Monitoring Judgments:
- Ease-of-learning (EOL) judgments
- occur in advance of acquisition
- predictions about what info and strategies will be the easiest to learn
- Judgments of learning (JOL)
- occur during or after acquisition
- predictions about future test performance on currently recallable items
- Feeling-of-knowing (FOK) judgments
- occur during or after acquisition
- judgments about a currently unrecallable item is known and/or will
be remembered on a later memory test
- for incorrectly or non-recalled items, FOK judgments are obtained by asking
how likely Ss are to be able to identify the answer on a recognition test
Research in Metacognition:
Tip-of-the-Tongue (TOT) Phenomenon
- Definition of TOT state:
- information is available but not accessible from memory
- usually parts of the information is accessible, but not enough to warrant
a response
- associated with FOK
- Methods:
- naming rare words from definitions (e.g. Brown & McNeill, 1966)
- naming famous people from pictures
- answering trivia questions
- Results:
- TOT levels are fairly low (BUT STILL OCCUR)
- often recall the first letter and the number of syllables of the target
when reporting a TOT state
- names of famous people, acquaintances, and famous landmarks are especially
susceptible to TOT states
- What causes TOT states?
- retrieval blocking:
- activation of items in memory that are similar to the target (called
“interlopers”) compete with the target during a memory search
- thus, the retrieval of the target is suppressed
- related words serve to block retrieval
- incomplete activation:
- an initial memory cue may not activate a target word or name enough
for retrieval of target
- related words facilitate eventual retrieval
- How are TOT states resolved?
- more resolutions occur when Ss varied their search strategies, rather
than sticking to a single strategy
- phonological cues, such as initials of famous names (Brennen et al., 1990)
help to narrow search and resolve TOT state
- Do TOT reports predict imminent recall?
- immediate resolution:
- 40-50% of reported TOTs are resolved within a few minutes (Brown, 1991)
- associated with incomplete activation
- delayed resolution:
- 50-60% were NOT resolved in a short time (Brown, 1991)
- associated with retrieval blocking
- incubation effect......
Metacognition and Mount Everest (Nelson et al., 1990)
- assessed memory for factual information (“What is the capital of Finland?”)
- assessed FOK judgments for unanswered or incorrect responses
- tested at varying levels of elevation:
- Katmandu (1,200 m)
- Basecamp (5,400 m)
- Camp 2 (6,500 m)
- Camp 3 (7,100 m)
- Basecamp (5,400 m)
- Katmandu (1,200 m)
- Results:
- memory retrieval was unimpaired
- ratings of FOK decreased, and remained low 1 week after returning to Katmandu
- Conclusions
- climbers at extreme altitudes become less confident in their future performance
and decision-making
- direct and long-lasting effect of hypoxia on brain mechanisms
- similar results with individuals on diazepam (Valium)
- should take these findings into account when psychologically treating
someone on Valium
Metacognition and Alcohol Intoxication
- Results:
- memory retrieval is impaired
- FOK judgments are unimpaired
- Conclusions:
- based on Nelson et al. (1990), hypoxia DOES NOT resemble overindulgence
in alcohol as previously believed
Metacognition and Depressed Children (Lauer et al., 1994)
- Method:
- frequency of occurrence task (with pictures)
- Metamemory Battery (Belmont & Borkowski, 1988)
- examines a child’s metamnemonic knowledge and ability
- Results:
- both depressed and nondepressed children performed equally well on memory
task
- depressed children (aged 9-12 yrs) overestimated their memory abilities
- Conclusions:
- overestimation may be an attempt to compensate for feelings of inadequacy
produced by overly critical thought processes
- overestimation may be part of a self-fulfilling prophecy, where depressives
overestimate their abilities, consistently falling short of their expectations
and thus finding more evidence that they are failures -- tend to set themselves
up for failure by being unrealistic about their abilities
- targeting such cognitive distortions can be a focal point of cognitive
therapy for depression
Metacognition and College Learning
- most students tend to OVERESTIMATE their knowledge of the course materials
- students with lower grades tend to overestimate their knowledge more than
students with higher grades
- SO WHAT’S THE LESSON HERE??
- use stricter criteria for deciding that you “know” the material
- You probably do NOT know the material if you cannot:
- explain a theory, concept, or experiment to someone else
- answer all the chapter review questions (without looking back)
- define all the “new terms” at the end of each chapter (without looking
back)