Metacognition Lecture

A set of vocabulary flashcards based on lecture notes covering metacognitive definitions, control processes, various metamemory judgments, and research findings from studies by Liu et al. (2007), Huff & Ulakci (2025), and Brewer & Wells (2006).

Metacognition

Our knowledge and awareness of our own cognitive processes.

Metamemory

Our knowledge and awareness of our own memory processes, including the ability to monitor and control one’s own memory abilities.

Monitoring

Our ability to make assessments about what we know and what we do not know.

Monitoring accuracy

Occurs when a person thinks they know something and can access it in memory, or thinks they do not know something and indeed do not know it; failure occurs if a known item cannot be retrieved.

Metacognitive control

The self-regulation of cognitive or memory processes, such as the ability to regulate learning or retrieval based on monitoring processes.

Tip of the tongue (TOT) experience

An issue of accessibility where a person feels as though an item is currently inaccessible but has a strong sense that access to the item can eventually be recovered.

Ease of learning

Metamemory judgments made in advance of study regarding how difficult an item will be to learn and the likelihood of it being remembered later.

Remember/Know

A judgment that provides insight into the cognitive basis for reporting an item.

Feeling of Knowing (FOKs)

Judgments regarding the likelihood that an item can be retrieved in the future or that the correct answer can be recognized if presented.

Judgments of learning (JOLs)

Judgments made during study regarding whether an item has been learned and predicting future memory performance.

Retrospective confidence

A participant’s subjective sense that a provided answer is correct.

Calibration

The relationship between metamemory judgments and memory outcomes; a well-calibrated person's performance corresponds well to the judgments they provided.

RJR Procedure

A procedure developed by Hart ($1965$) involving three steps: try to recall the item, make an FOK for recognition if recall fails, and then perform a recognition trial.

Positive feeling-of-knowing

A type of FOK referring to the situation where subjects know a yet-to-be retrieved item; primarily determined by target retrievability.

Negative feeling-of-knowing

A type of FOK where subjects feel they do not know an item; primarily affected by cue familiarity.

Delayed JOL effect

The finding that JOLs rendered for cue-only presentations after a short delay are more accurate and may serve as an implicit way of self-testing.

Garden path sentences

Stimuli used in the Huff & Ulakci ($2025$) study, such as: "Because Bill drinks wine is never kept in the house."

Choosers

Participants in eyewitness identification research, such as Brewer & Wells ($2006$), who make a positive identification.

Retrospective Overconfidence

The tendency for people to exhibit overconfidence when thinking of all items on a test as a whole, even though they distinguish well between correct and incorrect individual items.