The relationship between confidence and accuracy has long been an important and controversial topic within the field of human memory. In a recent review article, Schwartz (2024). "Inferential theories of retrospective confidence." Metacognition & Learning.) competently summarized some of the key empirical findings on this issue and…

Two experiments determined whether metamemory judgments invoking covert retrieval practice for a list of unrelated paired associate words led to the facilitation of learning a subsequent list. Three types of relation between successive lists were compared: negative transfer (A-B, A-D); a control for item-specific proactive interference (A-B, C-D);…

Metamemory monitoring, study behavior, and memory are presumably causally connected. When people misjudge their memory, their study behavior should be biased accordingly. Remedying "metamemory illusions" should debias study behavior and improve memory. One metamemory illusion concerns source memory, a critical aspect of episodic memory.…

Item memory (e.g., recall or recognition of specific items) can reactively change when metacognitively monitored via judgments of learning (JOLs). The current research explores whether memory for inter-item relations (e.g., semantic relations among list items) is reactively influenced by JOLs. Participants in Experiment 1 studied rhyming word…

Recent evidence has shown that eliciting confidence ratings can affect cognitive performance--a so-called reactivity effect. Several mechanisms have been proposed to account for reactivity, but currently there is only indirect evidence about why confidence ratings are reactive. Here, we explore the strategic changes in cognitive processes that…

Predicting what we will remember and forget is crucial for daily functioning. We were interested in whether evaluating something as likely to be remembered or forgotten leads to enhanced memory for "both" forms of information relative to information that was not judged for memorability. We presented participants with lists of words to…

Metamemory judgments, defined as predictions of memory performance, are often influenced by misleading cues, such as fluency. However, how fluency cues compete to influence retrospective metamemory judgments is still unclear. The present study investigated how multiple fluency cues concurrently influence immediate feeling of knowing (FOK)…

Successful recognition is generally thought to be based on both recollection and familiarity of studied information. Recent studies found that making judgments of learning (JOLs) can reactively facilitate recognition performance, a form of reactivity effect on memory. The current study aimed to explore the roles of recollection and familiarity in…

Learning from texts means acquiring and applying knowledge, which requires students to judge their text comprehension accurately. However, students usually overestimate their comprehension, which can be caused by a misalignment between the cues used to judge one's comprehension and the cognitive requirements of future test questions. Therefore,…

Retrospective confidence refers to the phenomenological experience of the level of certainty that retrieved information is, in fact, correct. Retrospective confidence judgments are examined across a range of sub-disciplines in psychology from perception to memory research, and in education and legal applications. This paper focuses on…

Emotional information pervades experiences in daily life. Numerous studies have established that emotional materials and information are easier to remember than neutral ones, a phenomenon known as the emotional salience effect on memory. In recent years, an emerging body of research has begun to explore the effect of emotion on metamemory.…

Metacognition is important for successful goal-directed behavior. It consists of two main elements: metacognitive knowledge and online awareness. Online awareness consists of monitoring and self-regulation. Metacognitive sensitivity is the extent to which someone can accurately distinguish their own correct from incorrect responses and is an…

Despite the naïve intuition that individuals' confidence in their future memory performance should increase with longer self-paced study time, it is commonly observed that the relation between invested study time and memory predictions (i.e., judgments of learning (JOLs)) is negative. This negative relation has been suggested to reflect use of the…

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…

Research has shown that judgments of learning (JOLs) often produce a reactive effect on the learning of cue-target pairs in which target recall differs between participants who provide item-based JOLs at study versus those who do not. Positive reactivity, or the memory improvement found when JOLs are provided, is typically observed on related…