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Metacognitive experiences, a component of metacognition, may have distinctive characteristics at each instance, and they help relate and practice metacognitive knowledge and strategies. This case study examines pre-service teachers' task-specific metacognitive experiences and strategic planning performances. Data were collected from 187 volunteers via four different tasks with compatible demands and the Metacognitive Experiences Questionnaire, delivered before and after task completion. The reasons behind task selection were coded thematically, and performance scores were coded regarding the complexity of strategic planning. Findings confirmed that strategic planning performance did not vary across tasks, reasons, or class levels. Moreover, while the data did not fit the theoretical model of the Metacognitive Experiences Questionnaire, an exploratory factor analysis produced a three-factor solution for task-specific metacognitive experiences. Task-specific metacognitive experiences in this study may be represented by metacognitive estimates, feelings, and judgments, and they explained 59.5% of the variance. Post-task correctness and confidence judgments were significant predictors. While correctness judgments may facilitate performance, confidence may impose false adequacy judgments, implying the Dunning-Kruger effect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Determining one’s confidence in a decision is a vital part of decision-making. Traditionally, psychological experiments have assessed a person’s confidence by eliciting confidence judgments. The notion that such judgments can be elicited without impacting the accuracy of the decision has recently been challenged by several studies which have shown reactivity effects—either an increase or decrease in decision accuracy when confidence judgments are elicited. Evidence for the direction of reactivity effects has, however, been decidedly mixed. Here, we report three studies designed to specifically make reactivity effects more prominent by eliciting confidence judgment contemporaneously with perceptual decisions. We show that confidence judgments elicited contemporaneously produce an impairment in decision accuracy, this suggests that confidence judgments may rely on a partially distinct set of cues/evidence than the primary perceptual decision and, additionally, challenges the continued use of confidence ratings as an unobtrusive measure of metacognition.

Determining one's confidence in a decision is a vital part of decision-making. Traditionally, psychological experiments have assessed a person's confidence by eliciting confidence judgments. The notion that such judgments can be elicited without impacting the accuracy of the decision has recently been challenged by several studies which have shown reactivity effects—either an increase or decrease in decision accuracy when confidence judgments are elicited. Evidence for the direction of reactivity effects has, however, been decidedly mixed. Here, we report three studies designed to specifically make reactivity effects more prominent by eliciting confidence judgment contemporaneously with perceptual decisions. We show that confidence judgments elicited contemporaneously produce an impairment in decision accuracy, this suggests that confidence judgments may rely on a partially distinct set of cues/evidence than the primary perceptual decision and, additionally, challenges the continued use of confidence ratings as an unobtrusive measure of metacognition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: A large body of work has identified a core sense of number supported by the Approximate Number System (ANS) that is present in infancy and across species. Although it is commonly assumed that the ANS directly processes perceptual input and is relatively independent from affective factors, some evidence points at a correlation between ANS performance and math anxiety. However, the evidence is mixed. We tested whether giving participants active control in completing a numerical task would change the relationship between math anxiety on performance. Methods: Adult participants (N = 103) completed a novel four-alternative-forcedchoice non-symbolic numerical comparison task. In a repeated-measures design, participants either passively viewed different dot arrays or actively chose to view each array (i.e., active information-seeking) before deciding on the largest quantity. Participants also provided confidence judgments during the passive version of the task. Results: We replicated the ratio-dependent signature in participants' accuracy in both the passive and active versions of the task using this novel paradigm, as well as in trial-level confidence judgments and information-seeking behavior. Participants' self-reported math anxiety significantly correlated with their accuracy on the passive version of the task. Critically, the correlation disappeared in the active version of the task. Gender also emerged as a predictor of confidence judgments and a moderator of the effect of task on overall accuracy and the effect of active information seeking on accuracy in the active version of the task. Exploratory analysis of estimated Weber Fraction suggests that these results may be driven by auxiliary factors instead of changes in ANS acuity. Conclusion: These findings have implications for understanding the relationship between math anxiety and performance on numerical tasks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During exploration, young children often show an intuitive sensitivity to uncertainty, despite their strong tendency towards overconfidence in their explicit judgments. Here, we examine the development of children's explicit and implicit recognition of uncertainty using the same stimuli. We presented 4- and 5-year-olds with objects that varied in their amount of perceptual occlusion, and assessed their ability to distinguish among them using two types of measures. Experiment 1 used a traditional 3-point confidence scale to examine children's explicit uncertainty judgments. We compared these confidence judgments before and after they observed disconfirming evidence, to assess the impact of this experience on their acknowledgement of uncertainty in later trials. Experiment 2 examined children's exploration preference as a measure of implicit sensitivity to uncertainty. Our results indicate that children intuitively recognize gaps in their knowledge, and that this implicit recognition may be leveraged to support their explicit judgments. Specifically, we found that children's baseline confidence judgments improved significantly following the presentation of disconfirming evidence. Furthermore, when asked to make exploration decisions about the same set of objects, children showed a spontaneous sensitivity to uncertainty, prior to any evidence. Taken together, these results suggest that children's exploration behavior may be used as an early developing measure of uncertainty control and raise the intriguing possibility that the experience of unexpected outcomes may play a role in the development of metacognition.

IntroductionA large body of work has identified a core sense of number supported by the Approximate Number System (ANS) that is present in infancy and across species. Although it is commonly assumed that the ANS directly processes perceptual input and is relatively independent from affective factors, some evidence points at a correlation between ANS performance and math anxiety. However, the evidence is mixed. We tested whether giving participants active control in completing a numerical task would change the relationship between math anxiety on performance.MethodsAdult participants (N = 103) completed a novel four-alternative-forced-choice non-symbolic numerical comparison task. In a repeated-measures design, participants either passively viewed different dot arrays or actively chose to view each array (i.e., active information-seeking) before deciding on the largest quantity. Participants also provided confidence judgments during the passive version of the task.ResultsWe replicated the ratio-dependent signature in participants’ accuracy in both the passive and active versions of the task using this novel paradigm, as well as in trial-level confidence judgments and information-seeking behavior. Participants’ self-reported math anxiety significantly correlated with their accuracy on the passive version of the task. Critically, the correlation disappeared in the active version of the task. Gender also emerged as a predictor of confidence judgments and a moderator of the effect of task on overall accuracy and the effect of active information seeking on accuracy in the active version of the task. Exploratory analysis of estimated Weber Fraction suggests that these results may be driven by auxiliary factors instead of changes in ANS acuity.ConclusionThese findings have implications for understanding the relationship between math anxiety and performance on numerical tasks.

This article presents a joint modeling framework of ordinal responses and response times (RTs) for the measurement of latent traits. We integrate cognitive theories of decision-making and confidence judgments with psychometric theories to model individual-level measurement processes. The model development starts with the sequential sampling framework which assumes that when an item is presented, a respondent accumulates noisy evidence over time to respond to the item. Several cognitive and psychometric theories are reviewed and integrated, leading us to three psychometric process models with different representations of the cognitive processes underlying the measurement. We provide simulation studies that examine parameter recovery and show the relationships between latent variables and data distributions. We further test the proposed models with empirical data measuring three traits related to motivation. The results show that all three models provide reasonably good descriptions of observed response proportions and RT distributions. Also, different traits favor different process models, which implies that psychological measurement processes may have heterogeneous structures across traits. Our process of model building and examination illustrates how cognitive theories can be incorporated into psychometric model development to shed light on the measurement process, which has had little attention in traditional psychometric models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We report three experiments designed to reveal the mechanisms that underlie subjective experiences of recognition by examining effects of how those experiences are measured. Prior research has explored the potential influences of collecting metacognitive measures on memory performance. Building on this work, here we systematically evaluated whether cross-measure contamination occurs when remember-know (RK) and/or confidence (C) judgments are made after old/new recognition decisions. In Experiment 1, making either RK or C judgments did not significantly influence recognition relative to a standard no-judgment condition. In Experiment 2, making RK judgments in addition to C judgments did not significantly affect recognition or confidence. In Experiment 3, making C judgments in addition to RK judgments did not significantly affect recognition or patterns of RK responses. Cross-contamination was not apparent regardless of whether items were studied using a shallow or deep levels-of-processing task – a manipulation that yielded robust effects on recognition, RK judgments, and C. Our results indicate that under some conditions, participants can independently evaluate their recognition, subjective recognition experience, and confidence. Though contamination across measures of metamemory and memory is always possible, it may not be inevitable. This has implications for the mechanisms that underlie subjective experiences that accompany recognition judgments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Prior knowledge is often strongly related to students' learning. In the present research, we explored the relationship between prior knowledge and the accuracy of students' predictive monitoring judgments (judgments of learning; JOLs) and postdictive monitoring judgments (confidence judgments). In four experiments, students completed prior knowledge tests over two domains (football and cooking), learned new items from those domains, and completed a test over those items. To ensure the learning was new, the items that students learned and were tested over consisted of made-up facts from each domain. In Experiments 1–3, students made JOLs predicting the likelihood that they would remember each item on the test. In Experiments 2 and 3, students also made confidence judgments in the accuracy of their response after answering each question on the final test. Prior knowledge was negatively related to the accuracy of students' JOLs, but unrelated to the accuracy of their confidence judgments. Exploratory analyses revealed that the relationship with JOLs was likely driven by high knowledge students giving relatively lower JOLs to items that they later remembered. Experiment 4 directly tested this possibility by having students make binary memory predictions about whether they would remember each item. Outcomes were consistent with the exploratory analyses. Thus, the negative relationship between prior knowledge and JOL accuracy appears to be driven by the greater tendency of high knowledge students, relative to low knowledge students, to remember items that they thought they would forget. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We investigate the relationship between exploratory learningand confidence scale judgments in understanding andimproving children’s early recognition of uncertainty. Four-and five-year-olds were presented with stimuli that varied intheir amount of occlusion. We assessed children’s ability todistinguish between these levels of uncertainty using twotypes of measures. Experiment 1 used a traditional 3-pointconfidence scale to examine explicit uncertainty judgments.Experiment 2 examined exploration preference as an implicitmeasure of uncertainty using the same stimuli. We comparedchildren’s performance on these two tasks before and aftertheir experience of disconfirming evidence, to assess theimpact of surprising events on the recognition of uncertainty.Results indicate that children intuitively recognize gaps intheir knowledge and express this in their exploratory behaviorbefore they are able to spontaneously produce accurateconfidence judgments. We also find that this implicitrecognition of uncertainty may be leveraged to support andimprove explicit judgments, even without extensive training.

College students in a lower-division psychology course made metacognitive judgments by predicting and postdicting performance for true-false, multiple-choice, and fill-in-the-blank question sets on each of three exams. This study investigated which question format would result in the most accurate metacognitive judgments. Extending Koriat’s (1997) cue-utilization framework to these judgments, each format gave students different cues on which to base judgments. Further, each format has different probabilities of correctly guessing, which can skew accuracy. Students reported the lowest estimates for fill-in-the-blank questions. Accuracy measured using bias scores showed students’ predictions and postdictions were most accurate for multiple-choice items. Accuracy measured using gamma correlations showed students’ predictions were most accurate for multiple-choice items and postdictions were most accurate for fill-in-the-blank items. Based on the findings, educators are encouraged to consider what implications question format have on metacognitive processes when testing students over studied material. And, for researchers, the findings support the use of different accuracy measures to get a more detailed understanding of factors influencing metacognitive judgment accuracy.

We offer short story ("vignette") materials that have been developed and tested with the intention of influencing people's true and false beliefs about the world. First, we present norming data on the baseline rates at which participants from both U.S.-census matched and general U.S. online samples were correctly able to classify a selected set of accurate (e.g., aerobic exercise strengthens your heart and lungs) and inaccurate (e.g., aerobic exercise weakens your heart and lungs) assertions as "True" or "False." Next, we present data which validate that reading vignettes in which people discuss these accurate and inaccurate assertions influences participants' subsequent judgments of the validity of the asserted claims. These vignettes are brief, easy-to-read, allow for flexible and accountable online data collection, and reflect realistic accurate and inaccurate claims that people routinely encounter (e.g., preventative health behaviors, use of alternative medicines and therapies, etc.). As intended, vignettes containing inaccurate assertions increased participants' subsequent judgment errors, while vignettes containing accurate assertions decreased participants' subsequent judgment errors, both relative to participants' judgments after not reading related information. In an additional experiment, we used the vignette materials to replicate findings from Salovich et al. (2021), wherein participants reported lower confidence in correct judgments and higher confidence in incorrect judgments after having read inaccurate assertions. Overall, these materials are well suited for investigations on the consequences of exposures to accurate and inaccurate information, address limitations in currently available stimuli, and align with trends in research practice (e.g., online sampling) within psychological science. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We investigated whether three interventions – studying incorrect worked examples, studying correct worked examples, or receiving feedback – improved children's 0–1,000 (Experiment 1) and adults' 1 thousand–1 billion (Experiment 2) number-line estimation precision relative to a no intervention control group. At pretest, participants estimated numbers on number lines (without feedback or examples) and judged their confidence in each estimate. They were then assigned to an intervention group, completed intervention trials, and then estimated numbers and judged their confidence at posttest. Children's and adults' confidence judgments did not increase from pretest to posttest. However, consistent with prior research, feedback improved children's and adults' estimation precision from pretest-to-posttest. Importantly, studying correct worked examples also improved precision, but studying incorrect worked examples did not. Although not all children benefited from training, those who did were able to transfer their knowledge to a number-categorization task. Adults in the feedback group were also able to transfer their learning. These outcomes highlight benefits of studying worked examples for improving children's and adults' estimation precision, but to obtain benefits, corrective feedback must be included. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Metacognition is a part of the models of self-regulated learning. The consideration of a broader context resonates with a social cognitive perspective approach to learning which dominates the educational academic field with the theory of self-regulated learning. Metacognition is considered a crucial factor influencing mathematics achievement. Furthermore, the aective field including pupils’ self-efficacy, interest and motivation are the phenomena involved in mathematical problem-solving. On the other hand, metacognitive knowledge and metacognitive regulations are not a regular part of mathematics education in the Czech Republic. The main aim of this study was to investigate the relation between pupils’ attitude toward mathematics; metacognitive knowledge; self-efficacy and motivation; metacognitive monitoring; and their achievement in solving mathematical problems. All together 1,133 students of Grade 5 from four types of Czech schools participated in the study. There were traditional schools; schools teaching mathematics by genetic constructivism, i.e., Hejný’s method; Montessori schools; and Dalton schools were involved. The assessed variables, namely relation to mathematics; metacognitive knowledge; self-efficacy and motivation; metacognitive monitoring; and mathematical achievement were used as an input to regression analysis. Item-response theory was used for assessing the performance of the students and demands of the tasks. The metacognitive monitoring was detected as the most significant predictor of mathematics achievement for higher- and lower-performing students as well as for the item with high and low demands. The study reveals how the dierent mathematics curricula (un)support the metacognitive processes involved in mathematical problem-solving. The information allows teachers to spend sufficient time with particular types of mathematics problems whose solutions is determined by activation of metacogniprocesses. This demonstrates the importance of including the activities for development of metacognitive monitoring in mathematics education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Metacognition is a part of the models of self-regulated learning. The consideration of a broader context resonates with a social cognitive perspective approach to learning which dominates the educational academic field with the theory of self-regulated learning. Metacognition is considered a crucial factor influencing mathematics achievement. Furthermore, the affective field including pupils' self-efficacy, interest and motivation are the phenomena involved in mathematical problem-solving. On the other hand, metacognitive knowledge and metacognitive regulations are not a regular part of mathematics education in the Czech Republic. The main aim of this study was to investigate the relation between pupils' attitude toward mathematics; metacognitive knowledge; self-efficacy and motivation; metacognitive monitoring; and their achievement in solving mathematical problems. All together 1,133 students of Grade 5 from four types of Czech schools participated in the study. There were traditional schools; schools teaching mathematics by genetic constructivism, i.e., Hejný's method; Montessori schools; and Dalton schools were involved. The assessed variables, namely relation to mathematics; metacognitive knowledge; self-efficacy and motivation; metacognitive monitoring; and mathematical achievement were used as an input to regression analysis. Item-response theory was used for assessing the performance of the students and demands of the tasks. The metacognitive monitoring was detected as the most significant predictor of mathematics achievement for higher- and lower-performing students as well as for the item with high and low demands. The study reveals how the different mathematics curricula (un)support the metacognitive processes involved in mathematical problem-solving. The information allows teachers to spend sufficient time with particular types of mathematics problems whose solutions is determined by activation of metacognitive processes. This demonstrates the importance of including the activities for development of metacognitive monitoring in mathematics education.

Visibility and confidence are two subtly (sensation-based and intuition-based) different ways to assess our visual experiences. We investigated how different choice sets affect the ability of confidence and visibility judgments to retrieve conscious information from perceptual decision-making processes. Six participants made introspective judgments on sinusoidal gratings at close to chance signal-to-noise values. We used signal detection theory and mixed regression models to analyze choices and pupilometric recordings. The results suggest that allowing null responses (e.g., "I saw nothing") asymmetrically affects the signal distribution variances associated with null and non-null responses; confidence is more effective than visibility in accessing unconscious information; and bias-free methods hinder accurate introspective judgment by forbidding free decision criteria. Our findings underscore the importance of the context afforded by choice and stimulus sets, which determines the extent to which elicited introspective judgments are based on the actual information from the past events they are intended to measure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Self-regulated learning rarely happens in isolation and although there is a wide range of evidence that socio-cognitive information may impact decision making and learning, its role in metacognitive self-regulation remains understudied. Thus, we investigated how socio-cognitive information on assumptions and confidence in assumptions of an unknown other in a learning setting affects (1) changes in assumptions (i.e., convergence towards other), (2) perception of the other's competence, and (3) the search for information (i.e., metacognitive and conflict-based regulation). In our empirical study, N = 60 students first read texts, then judged statements as being true or false and stated their confidence in these assumptions on an integrated confidence/answer scale, were then confronted with bogus information on the supposed answers of another learner (computer generated), and were then asked to (1) re-state their assumptions including confidence judgment, (2) judge the other's competence, and (3) decide what statements they wanted additional information on. Results showed that learners (1) converged towards the other learner, (2) judged the other's competence in accordance with the other's stated confidence, and (3) regulated their learning based on their own (adjusted) confidence rather than on the presence or absence of socio-cognitive conflicts. This suggests that socio-cognitive information can affect how learners metacognitively evaluate own assumptions and thus impact self-regulatory processes, but also that confidence of others affects their perceived competence. Although the direct impact of socio-cognitive conflicts on regulatory processes remains unclear, this study fosters our understanding of self-regulated learning processes within social contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A variety of animals have been shown to make confidence judgments about their own knowledge or performance, but the mechanism for these metacognitive decisions is still debated. Much of the work on animal metacognitive abilities has been to rule out alternative, non-introspective mechanisms such as associative learning, behavioral cue association, or environmental cue association. However, the human metacognition literature has shown that even humans often do not use true introspection or directly access their own memory to make metacognitive judgments–they sometimes use heuristic strategies based on perceptual salience. Often these heuristic strategies are inaccurate and cause metacognitive errors. Here we offer a new route to testing animal metacognitive abilities by comparing the fragility of human and animal metacognition. We show that monkeys’ confidence judgments, like those of humans, are at least partly based on salient perceptual features of the stimuli and susceptible to faulty heuristics.

Prior research has found gender differences in spatial tasks in which men perform better, and are more confident, than women. Do gender differences also occur in people's confidence as they perform number-line estimation, a common spatial-numeric task predictive of math achievement? To investigate this question, we analyzed outcomes from six studies (N = 758 girls/women and boys/men with over 20,000 observations; grades 1–5 and adults) that involved a similar method: Participants estimated where a provided number (e.g., ¾, 37) was located on a bounded number line (e.g., 0–1; 0–100), then judged their confidence in that estimate. Boys/men were more precise (g =.52) and more confident (g =.30) in their estimates than were girls/women. Linear mixed model analyses of the trial-level data revealed that girls'/women's estimates had about 31% more error than did boys'/men's estimates, and even when controlling for precision, girls/women were about 7% less confident in their estimates than were boys/men. These outcomes should encourage researchers to consider gender differences for studies on math cognition and provide pathways for future research to address potential mechanisms underlying the present gender gaps. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Older adults often demonstrate a monitoring deficit by producing more high-confidence memory errors on recognition memory tests. To eliminate lower memory performance by older adults (OA) as a candidate explanation, we studied how distinctive encoding enhances the retrieval-monitoring accuracy in older adults and younger adults (YA) under different delays (2-day delay for OA, 7-day delay for YA). Individuals viewed items consisting of four randomly selected exemplars (e.g., SALMON, BASS, PERCH, and SHARK) from a taxonomic category (e.g., FISH), one being designated as the to-be-remembered target. Participants were randomly assigned to two encoding conditions: Shared (generate a shared feature of all exemplars, e.g., GILLS) or Distinctive (generate a distinctive feature of the designated target). We collected retrospective confidence judgments (RCJs) after a five-alternative forced-choice (5AFC) recognition test, with the lures being either previously presented (old) exemplars or new category exemplars. Recall and recognition memory were better with distinctive encoding, with shared feature generation producing more high-confidence false alarms (HCFAs). Distinctive encoding dramatically reduced HCFAs and improved RCJ resolution. Comparison of OA with 2-day delay YA revealed age differences in HCFA consistent with previous studies. As important, age differences in memory for OA and 7-day delay YA were minimized, eliminating age deficits in HCFAs. Matching OAs to a subset of 7-day delay YAs on recognition memory produced additional evidence favoring the null hypothesis of age-equivalence in HCFAs. The results therefore indicated that age differences in recognition-based retrieval monitoring in a forced-choice recognition test are an epiphenomenon of age differences in memory. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Is metacognition a general resource shared across domains? Previous research has documented consistent biases in judgments across tasks. In contrast, there is debate regarding the domain generality or the domain specificity of the ability to discriminate between correct and incorrect answers (metacognitive sensitivity) because most previous work has documented nonsignificant correlations across domains. However, such null findings may be due to low statistical power and differences in task structure or performance, thereby masking a latent domain generality in metacognition. We examined across-domain correlations in confidence level and sensitivity in a large sample (N = 181). Participants performed 4 2-alternative forced-choice tasks (episodic memory, semantic memory, executive function, and visual perception) with trial-by-trial confidence judgments. We found significant correlations in average confidence level across tasks. By applying a hierarchical Bayesian model to estimate cross-task covariance, we found five out 6 cross-task correlations in metacognitive efficiency (meta-d'/d') were significant, even for pairs of tasks in which first-order performance was not correlated. This suggests that at least some components of metacognitive efficiency in retrospective confidence are domain general. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Understanding fraction magnitudes is especially important in daily life, but fraction reasoning is quite difficult. To accurately reason about fraction magnitudes, adults need to monitor what they know and what they do not know. However, little is known about which cues adults use to monitor fraction performance. Across two studies, we examined adults' trial-by-trial fraction estimates, confidence judgments, and ratings of fraction familiarity. Adults were more confident when their estimates were more precise as well as when estimating fractions they rated as more familiar. However, adults judged their confidence in estimating fraction magnitudes, in part, based on their familiarity with each fraction. The role familiarity cues play in judgments of confidence with fractions suggests that people may be less likely to check for errors when reasoning about highly-familiar fractions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the past decade, research increasingly uncovers emerging metacognitive skills in young children by using child-friendly, creative, and non-verbal measures of metacognition. In the present study, the now often used non-verbal "opt-out" paradigm and classical verbal metacognitive judgments (judgments-of-learning and confidence judgments) were used in the context of a paired associates learning task. Prospectively (before the memory test) and retrospectively (after recognition) N = 138 children (N = 72 5-year-olds; N = 66 6-year-olds) evaluated their performance. Results revealed evidence for existing metacognitive skills in their relative sense (discriminating correct from incorrect responses in the metacognitive measures) but poor metacognitive accuracy in absolute terms. The non-verbal opt-out measures were not found to consistently and substantially facilitate especially 5-year-olds' metacognitive skills. Correlating non-verbal and verbal measures revealed shared but also distinct, yet to be explained variances calling for a strongly differentiated concept of children's early metacognition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Students who perform better academically are generally more accurate in assessing their performance. In other words, they are better calibrated, showing smaller discrepancy between their predicted and actual performance. Research into contextual variables related to performance has shown that students sitting position may be related to their performance in class. In the current study we attempted to bring several lines of research together and examine whether there are differences in academic performance, calibration, and confidence judgments among students who choose various sitting positions in the classroom. 130 college students (M = 21.52, SD = 1.59; 103 female) attending courses at the University of Jaen in Spain participated. Results revealed that students' calibration differed depending on their preferred sitting position. We found that students in middle rows were optimally calibrated, students in the front rows overestimated their performance, and those in the back rows tended to underestimate their performance. Furthermore, students in the front rows were the most confident in their estimates, whereas students in the middle and back rows were less confident, suggesting the manifestation of the Dunning-Kruger effect. Future directions for contextual variables contributing to students' optimal calibration are discussed. • Students who perform better academically are generally better calibrated. • Students' sitting position may be related to their performance in class. • Students' calibration differed depending on their preferred sitting position. • We show evidence of the Dunning-Kruger effect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Compared to young adults, older adults are more susceptible to endorse false memories as genuine and exhibit higher confidence in their decisions to do so. While most studies to date have addressed this phenomenon in the context of episodic memory, the literature on age-differences in false recognition during short-term memory (STM) is scarce. Hence, the present study investigated age-related differences in the rate of false alarms (FA) and subsequent confidence judgments in STM. Thirty-three young and thirty-three older adults performed a visual short-term recognition memory task. In each trial, participants encoded a single abstract object, then made a “same” or “different” decision on a subsequent test, followed by a confidence judgment. We found significant age-related differences in performance as measured by the sensitivity index (d′), but not in the rate of FAs. Older adults were more confident in their erroneous recognition decisions than younger adults. The results are discussed in the context of age-differences in monitoring and associative processes.

Compared to young adults, older adults are more susceptible to endorse false memories as genuine and exhibit higher confidence in their decisions to do so. While most studies to date have addressed this phenomenon in the context of episodic memory, the literature on age-differences in false recognition during short-term memory (STM) is scarce. Hence, the present study investigated age-related differences in the rate of false alarms (FA) and subsequent confidence judgments in STM. Thirty-three young and thirty-three older adults performed a visual short-term recognition memory task. In each trial, participants encoded a single abstract object, then made a "same" or "different" decision on a subsequent test, followed by a confidence judgment. We found significant age-related differences in performance as measured by the sensitivity index (d ′), but not in the rate of FAs. Older adults were more confident in their erroneous recognition decisions than younger adults. The results are discussed in the context of age-differences in monitoring and associative processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The influential metacognitive framework of Nelson and Narens (1990) distinguishes between object-level and meta-level, with two metacognitive processes, monitoring and control, governing the interplay between them. Monitoring refers to the process by which the meta-level tracks the accuracy of object level-performance, whereas control refers to the processes by which the meta-level regulates object-level processes. In this study, I examine the prediction derived from Koriat's (Psychological Review, 119, 80–113 2012a) self-consistency model (SCM) that when people indicate their confidence in the accuracy of their choice, their confidence actually monitors the likelihood that others will make the same choice better than the accuracy of that choice. This was shown to be the case for three levels of processing: choosing the correct option, predicting the choice made by others, and predicting the predictions made by others about the majority choice. The conditions under which object-level correspondence and same-level correspondence are aligned or diverge are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights • Retrieval practice eliminated differences in performance as a function of prior topic knowledge. • For non-tested items, students performed better on chapter content for which they possessed high prior topic knowledge. • Students possessed better monitoring accuracy for items which were practice-tested, and reduced overconfidence, especially in cases where students possessed high prior topic knowledge. • Students perceived retrieval practice as beneficial as a strategy for remembering information over time and as an aid to inform future study sessions. Abstract We investigated whether retrieval practice would interact with prior topic knowledge to influence chapter exam performances and confidence judgments of 41 undergraduates enrolled in an educational psychology class. As hypothesized, retrieval practice eliminated differences in exam performance as a function of prior topic knowledge. For practice-tested items, criterion test performances were comparable for high- and low-knowledge topics. By contrast, for non-tested items, students performed better on chapter content for which they possessed high prior topic knowledge. Importantly, this occurred when level of prior knowledge was operationalized based on the group means on topic pretests, and when labeling topics as high or low prior knowledge for each student based on their individual scores. Students possessed better monitoring accuracy when rating exam items that were practice-tested compared to items that were not; this difference was particularly pronounced for topics for which the group possessed high prior topic knowledge. Retrieval practice reduced overconfidence overall and especially in cases where students possessed high prior topic knowledge. Findings indicate that although retrieval practice benefits all students regardless of their prior topic knowledge, its benefits were greatest when studying unfamiliar content (i.e., low prior topic knowledge) and for increasing accuracy of confidence judgments when prior topic knowledge is high. Open-ended comments indicated that students perceived retrieval practice as helpful for retaining and retrieving information over time, for monitoring their comprehension, and for cueing important information for subsequent restudy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous studies on metacognitive performance have explored children’s abilities during primary school (7–11 years) in abstract and mathematical reasoning tasks. However, there have been no studies evaluating the metamemory processes with spatial tasks in primary school children, and even more generally, only a few studies have explored spatial metacognition in adults. Taking as a preliminary study a Spanish school, the present work explores the validity of the confidence judgment model when thinking about one’s own performance in a spatial test, for boys and girls in Second Year of Primary Education (mean age of 7 years). A total of 18 boys and 15 girls applied a 4-point scale to evaluate, item by item, the confidence of their responses in the Spatial aptitude test “E” of the EFAI-1 (Factorial Assessment of Intellectual Abilities to mentally process visual stimuli). Accessibility and Accuracy Indexes were calculated for each item of the spatial task. The effect of gender was analyzed too. The tasks were administered in small groups; at the end examiners interviewed each participant, performing the confidence judgment task, item by item, of the EFAI-1 previously answered. The results (analyses carried out by SPSS) showed a high mean confidence (3 mean points out of a maximum of 4), without finding any significant differences either in the spatial performance or in the mean confidence rating between boys and girls. A significant relationship between confidence judgments and spatial task performance accuracy was found. The relationship between confidence judgments and spatial performance cannot be confirmed. The procedure adapted for testing spatial judgments about the own responses has been useful for showing the well calibrated perception about performance at this stage. The implications of the results of this exploratory study and the potential of the application of the procedure to promote thought about one’s own spatial performance and the development of strategies that modulate the effective approach of this type of spatial tasks are discussed within an educational approach.

Judgments about whether anyone can provide a relevant and correct answer to a question are called answerability judgments. Such judgements can be important in societal planning and decision making and may vary in different cultural contexts. Six hundred participants in each of China, India, and Sweden made answerability judgments of six difficult knowledge questions. For each question, they choose between three options indicating that they thought the question was answerable and a fourth option: “Nobody can answer that question.” After each question, they rated their confidence that their judgment was correct. Choosing “Nobody can answer that question” was significantly more common for the Swedes and was uncommon in the Asian samples. The Asian samples showed higher confidence in their judgments. We suggest that these differences may be explained by results from cross-cultural research, but this study did not investigate specific mechanisms. Hence, more research is needed.

The Dark Triad traits—narcissism, Machiavellianism and psychopathy—have been found to be associated with intra- or interpersonal deception production frequency. This cross-sectional study (N = 207) investigated if the Dark Triad traits are also associated with deception detection accuracy, as implicated by the recent conception of a deception-general ability. To investigate associations between maladaptive personality space and deception, the PID-5 maladaptive personality traits were included to investigate if besides Machiavellianism, Detachment is negatively associated with response bias. Finally, associations between the Dark Triad traits, Antagonism, Negative Affectivity and confidence judgments were investigated. Participants watched videos of lying vs. truth-telling senders and judged the truthfulness of the statements. None of the Dark Triad traits was found to be associated with the ability to detect deception. Detachment was negatively associated with response bias. Psychopathy was associated with global confidence judgments. The results provide additional support that dark and maladaptive personality traits are associated with judgmental biases but not with accuracy in deception detection. The internal consistencies of 4 of the 8 subscales of the used personality short scales were only low and nearly sufficient (αs =0.65–0.69).

We tested whether an alternative lineup procedure designed to minimize problematic influences (e.g., metacognitive development) on decision criteria could be effectively used by children and improve child eyewitness identification performance relative to a standard identification task. Five hundred sixteen children (6- to 13-year-olds) watched a video of a target reading word lists and, the next day, made confidence ratings for each lineup member or standard categorical decisions for 8 lineup members presented sequentially. Two algorithms were applied to classify confidence ratings into categorical decisions and facilitate comparisons across conditions. The classification algorithms produced accuracy rates for the confidence rating procedure that were comparable to the categorical procedure. These findings demonstrate that children can use a ratings-based procedure to discriminate between previously seen and unseen faces. In turn, this invites more nuanced and empirical consideration of ratings-based identification evidence as a probabilistic index of guilt that may attenuate problematic social influences on child witnesses' decision criteria. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The current study investigated kindergarteners and second graders' ability to monitor and evaluate their own and a virtual peer's performance in a paired-associate learning task. Participants provided confidence judgments (CJs) for their own responses and performance-based judgments (judgments provided after receiving feedback on their performance) for both their own and a virtual peer's responses. For the performance-based judgments, children were confronted with their own or the peer's answer as well as the correct answer. Additionally, participants were asked to credit their own and the peer's correct and incorrect answers while facing feedback. Results indicate an age-related progression in metacognitive monitoring skills, with second graders differentiating more strongly in their confidence judgments between correct and incorrect responses compared to kindergarteners. Regarding performance-based judgments, children of both age groups provided higher judgments for correctly compared to incorrectly recognized items as well as for their own responses in comparison to the responses of the unknown child. Similarly, when crediting, participants of both age groups gave more credits for correct recognition than for incorrect recognition and for their own responses than for the peer's responses. The significant interaction between age group and recognition accuracy for the crediting shows that second graders gave more credits for correctly recognized items while kindergarteners gave more credits for incorrect answers than the older children - primarily for their own incorrect answers. In conclusion, the study provides new insights into 6- and 8-year-olds' evaluations of their own and an unknown child's performance in a paired-associate learning task by showing that children of both age groups generally judged and credited responses in their own favor. These results add to our understanding of biases in children's performance evaluations, including metacognitive judgments and judgments provided after receiving feedback. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To effectively self-regulate learning, children need to self-evaluate whether they meet learning goals. Unfortunately, self-evaluations are often inaccurate, typically, children are overconfident. We investigated two explanations for developmental progression in self-evaluations related to children's (48 5/6-year-olds and 53 7/8-year-olds) interpretations of performance: Improved reliance on item difficulty, and reduced sensitivity to self-protection biases. Self-evaluations were more accurate for 7/8-year-olds than for 5/6-year-olds. There was no developmental increase in reliance on item difficulty; even 5/6-year-olds made adaptive use of this cue. Both age groups were overconfident for incorrect responses, but were able to use performance feedback to improve confidence judgments. However, when self-rewarding, 5/6-year-olds were less likely to take negative performance feedback into account than 7/8-year-olds. The 5/6-year-olds were able to base confidence judgments on performance feedback, but did not use feedback to the same extent when self-rewarding. This may indicate that self-protective biases are an important cause of overconfidence in children. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Brunswik lens model typically represents a judge's accuracy using parameters derived from linear regression. This is not optimal if the judgment or the ecological criterion is dichotomous. Alternative approaches, modeling dichotomies using logistic regression, or linearizing judgments with confidence ratings, have not been compared with the same data. Four techniques for deriving lens model equation parameters were compared: (i) linear and (ii) logistic regression applied to dichotomous patient outcomes and judgments; (iii) linear regression with confidence-adjusted judgments but dichotomous patient outcomes; and (iv) a hybrid with a linear model of the confidence-adjusted judgments and a logistic model of the patient outcomes. Judgment accuracy (ra) was slightly higher with confidence adjustment of the categorical judgments. The logistic lens model accounted for a higher proportion of ra than the linear lens model; the confident-linear and hybrid lens models were intermediate. For up to a quarter of participants, different methods identified different cues as most important. Display condition differences in achievement ra and in lens model components are similar with all lens model methods. Each of the three alternative lens model equation methods improves on the linear lens model equation's decomposition of the accuracy of dichotomous judgments. Confidence adjustment improves achievement although it requires additional work from the subjects. The logistic lens model equation explains the highest proportion of achievement, but with a small stimulus set, it is more vulnerable to cue intercorrelations than either the linear or the confident linear lens model equation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Metacognition and self-awareness are commonly assumed to operate as global capacities. However, there have been few attempts to test this assumption across multiple cognitive domains and metacognitive evaluations. Here, we assessed the covariance between “online” metacognitive processes, as measured by decision confidence judgments in the domains of perception and memory, and error awareness in the domain of attention to action. Previous research investigating metacognition across task domains have not matched stimulus characteristics across tasks raising the possibility that any differences in metacognitive accuracy may be influenced by local task properties. The current experiment measured metacognition in perceptual, memorial and attention tasks that were closely matched for stimulus characteristics. We found that metacognitive accuracy across the three tasks was dissociated suggesting that domain specific networks support an individual’s capacity for accurate metacognition. This finding was independent of objective performance, which was controlled using a staircase procedure. However, response times for metacognitive judgments and error awareness were associated suggesting that shared mechanisms determining how these meta-level evaluations unfold in time may underlie these different types of decision. In addition, the relationship between these laboratory measures of metacognition and reports of everyday functioning from participants and their significant others (informants) was investigated. We found that informant reports, but not self reports, predicted metacognitive accuracy on the perceptual task and participants who underreported cognitive difficulties relative to their informants also showed poorer metacognitive accuracy on the perceptual task. These results are discussed in the context of models of metacognitive regulation and neuropsychological evidence for dissociable metacognitive systems. The potential for the refinement of metacognitive assessment in clinical populations is also discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study was conducted to explore the potential positive influence of a short strategy training on metacognitive monitoring competencies covering a life-span approach. Participants of four age groups (3rd-grade children, adolescents, younger and older adults) concluded a paired-associate learning task. Additionally, they gave delayed Judgments-of-Learning (JOLs), that is, they rated their certainty that they would later be able to recall specific details correctly, and Confidence Judgements (CJs), that is, they rated their certainty that the provided answers in the recall test were correct. Half of the participants underwent a short strategy training in order to enhance their recollection of contextual details thus providing a diagnostic basis for forming metacognitive judgements. Results revealed significant gains in memory performance after completing the strategy training. Moreover, a positive effect of the strategy training on JOLs and CJs differentiation and accuracy could be detected. Effects were most pronounced for children and older adults. Participants who had completed the strategy training also reported a decrease of familiarity-based metacognitive judgments and were able to identify memories for which no reliable cues existed more easily than participants in the control condition. Accordingly, improvements in monitoring performance seemed to be due to a shift in underlying cues. In sum, this study integrates traditional aims from the relatively separately existing lines of metacognitive research in the developmental and cognitive literature and adds to understanding and improving monitoring judgments in a life-time sample.