Lecture 6.1

Question 1

what is metacognition?

Answer 1

knowledge about your own cognition

Question 2

what is metamemory?

Answer 2

knowledge about how your memory works; perception of how well we think we remember something

Question 3

are predictions or postdictions more accurate?

Answer 3

postdictions tend to be more accurate because you’ve seen the material and can make an assessment of how well you did

Question 4

what other factors might influence a prediction?

Answer 4

how much sleep you got, how well you’ve done on other tests, how you felt before the test, etc.

Question 5

In the 1980 study by Zechmeister & Shaughnessy, what did people think led to better recall?

Answer 5

most people FELT that they’d do better with massed practice

Question 6

What were the results for the study done by Zechmeister & Shaughnessy?

Answer 6

PEOPLE ARE SENSITIVE TO HOW OFTEN WORDS ARE PRESENTED! *people were pretty accurate for spaced presentation recall, but were OVER confident for massed presentation recall

Question 7

what happened in Newton’s “Name that Tune” experiment?

Answer 7

tappers made predictions of how well they thought people would remember it; they overestimate performance by a lot.

Question 8

what is the curse of knowledge?

Answer 8

we are over-confident when we have access to information

Question 9

what is retrieval fluency?

Answer 9

when something quickly comes to mind

Question 10

what is perceptual fluency?

Answer 10

how easy something is to read

Question 11

what are the four types of metamemory judgments?

Answer 11

• ease of learning
• JOL
• FOK
• confidence

Question 12

what is ease of learning?

Answer 12

a judgment up-front of how easy it would be to learn something

Question 13

what is a judgment of learning (JOL)?

Answer 13

after encoding, you estimate the chance you’ll recall later

Question 14

what is a feeling of knowing (FOK)?

Answer 14

attempted recall; tip of the tongue (TOT) rating, prediction of later recall or recongition

Question 15

what is confidence?

Answer 15

how accurate a given response is

Question 16

how do we make JOLs?

Answer 16

through direct access or inferentially

Question 17

what is the theory of direct access?

Answer 17

when making JOLs, we have access to the memory

Question 18

what is the inferential theory?

Answer 18

when we don’t have access to the memory, but make an inference when making JOLs

Question 19

Do we always/ever have direct access to memories?

Answer 19

we almost never have direct access; we rely on cues & make guesses based on available information

Question 20

In an experiment done by Kelley & Rhodes, did font size influence judgments?

Answer 20

font size doesn’t really influence recall, but people THINK that it does

Question 21

what were subject’s JOLs in the font size experiment?

Answer 21

subjects’ JOLs showed predictions that were higher for larger font sizes, even though recall performance varied much less

Question 22

what conclusions can be made about the inverted words study?

Answer 22

engaging in effortful processing has benefits but most people don’t want to do it; they want it to be easy to learn

Question 23

what were the results in the inverted words study?

Answer 23

there was no difference in JOL between upright and inverted words, but recall was higher in inverted

Question 24

what do we know about retrieval dynamics?

Answer 24

we need to be able to retrieve info fast/know when we SHOULD be able to retrieve

Question 25

Do subjects take into account serial position when making JOLs?

Answer 25

Not really, but will when:

• info is told to them
• if they have some experience
• when they must provide a JOL prior to seeing the item

Question 26

When you must provide a JOL prior to seeing the material, what do you use?

Answer 26

extrinsic cues

Question 27

what are examples of extrinsic factors?

Answer 27

anything that influences how you’ll remember something: how you feel, when you’ll be tested, etc.