Cue learning in metamemory: understanding how people learn to judge memory

Navarro-Báez, Sofia

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URN:	urn:nbn:de:bsz:180-madoc-680956
Document Type:	Doctoral dissertation
Year of publication:	2024
Place of publication:	Mannheim
University:	Universität Mannheim
Evaluator:	Erdfelder, Edgar
Date of oral examination:	3 September 2024
Publication language:	English
Institution:	School of Social Sciences > Allgemeine Psychologie (Bröder 2010-)
License:	Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
Subject:	150 Psychology
Keywords (English):	metamemory , judgments of learning
Abstract:	Metacognition is the remarkable human ability to know and to think about one’s own cognition (Flavell, 1979). A large part of metacognition research has been conducted in the domain of memory where people’s assessments of their learning and memory are obtained via metamemory judgments. Inferential accounts of metacognition state that metamemory judgments such as judgments of learning (JOLs) – predictions of future memory –– are inferences based on cues and heuristics (Koriat, 1997). Since around the last 30 years, researchers have uncovered many cues that underlie metamemory judgments, most of which are valid and lead to accurate metamemory, but some of which are invalid and lead to illusions. Further, researchers have focused on understanding whether cues are directly and/or indirectly used for metamemory judgments through beliefs and/or feelings, respectively. But little is known about how cues informing metamemory judgments are learned or acquired. The goal of this thesis is to investigate and understand some of the mechanisms through which cues utilized for judging memory are learned. To this end, I used various experimental learning paradigms soliciting metamemory judgments. Across the three studies within this thesis, I found that experience with one’s own learning and testing is beneficial for judging the general memorability of pictures by increasing the judgment sensitivity to valid cues (Manuscript I). However, neither experiences across multiple study-test cycles nor cognitive feedback on the recall status and JOL given to each studied item are effective for learning cue validities in judgments for one’s own memory, JOLs. Rather, cue validities are learned through informative explanations about metacognition that lead to a deeper understanding of the cues (Manuscript II). Moreover, in a first demonstration of statistical learning influencing metacognition, I showed that regularities are extracted from experience with the environment and then used to inform JOLs. Since regularities in the environment are abundant, demonstrating that cues are learned via statistical learning mechanisms has relevant implications for real world learning (Manuscript III). With this, I showed when and which experiences are helpful for learning cues, what is effective in alleviating metacognitive illusions, and how to learn cues from the environment. Overall, the three manuscripts in this thesis contribute to our understanding of how cues for metamemory judgments are learned and pave the way for future research on cue learning in metamemory.