Lecture 3

Question 1

What is metacognition?

Answer 1

Defined as a higher level ability to think about the way that you think - self reflection or awareness of your own learning

Question 2

Why are people unable to estimate their own learning and their own forgetting?

Answer 2

We have a faulty mental model of how memory works.

Question 3

Definition of monitoring, learning judgements and control

Answer 3

Monitoring - your ability to keep track of what you are learning

Learning judgements - judgements you make of your own learning at the time of encoding

Control - ability to make changes to how you study based on monitoring outcomes/beliefs

Question 4

What is a JOL?

Answer 4

A judgement of learning where you make a decision about how likely it is you will remember this information at a future point in time.

Question 5

Are JOL’s a strong predictor of future performance? Why?

Answer 5

No. People try to correlate predictions with performance by fail because they do not take extrinsic factors into account

Question 6

What are inferences based on?

Answer 6

A range of cues

Question 7

What is the cue-utilisation framework?

Answer 7

• Higher accuracy is cues are consistent with factors that improve memory
• But cues differ in predictive validity
• When we study something, we rely on 3 types of cues

Question 8

What are the 3 types of cues in the cue-utilisation framework?

Answer 8

Intrinsic: a property of the word itself
Extrinsic: conditions of learning
Mnemonic: specific to the learner

Question 9

What type of cues do learners underestimate?

Answer 9

Extrinsic - we underestimate the effects of practice/repetition, leading to systematic discrepancies between actual learning and our beliefs about learning

Question 10

Carroll et al. (1997) - participants studied related vs. unrelated word pairs. What did they expect to find and what did they actually find?

Answer 10

They expected to find that people showed better memory for the pairs they have over learned (8times for hard pairs vs. 2 times for easy pairs) - this is what happened, but this is not what participants expected, they expected to remember the related word pairs even though they saw them less

Question 11

Koriat (1997) investigated the effects of practice using 2 blocks of easy and hard cue-target pairs. what happens when you look at the calibration?

Answer 11

There is a problem which starts emerging with the second presentation of the list where people are increasingly under-confident they will remember information

Question 12

Koriat et al. (2004) investigated related and unrelated word pairs and asked pps to make guesses about recall performance at different intervals. What did they find?

Answer 12

They found a striking difference between actual and predicted recall.

JOLS reflect item relatedness, but are insensitive to retention interval

People are unable to take into account the passage of time when they are making judgements about their performance, and when it comes to forgetting, people are over-confident

Question 13

What are heuristics?

Answer 13

Knowing what you know. A heuristic is a rule or method that helps you solve problems faster than you would if you did all the computing.

Question 14

Why do people make errors in judgement?

Answer 14

People rely on cues rather than facts. When people make predictions, they think about what they know in the moment, and not what they will know in the future

Question 15

What is the false belief surrounding the familiarity heuristic (perceptual fluency)

Answer 15

That when something seems familiar to us, that reflects knowledge.

In general, things that are familiar to us can be info we already know very well. However, familiarity can be deceptive, and familiarity does not tell us how available information will be to retrieve later on - making you end up believing more than you actually know

Question 16

Jacoby, Kelly, Brown and Jasechk (1989) “Becoming famous overnight” gave people a list of non-famous names, tested them either immediately or the next day. What did they find?

Answer 16

When tested immediately, the ratings you give to non-famous names are lower than new, non-famous people because people remembered they studied e.g. Victoria Marsh and know it’s not famous, the name is familiar and comes to mind easy but they know it’s not famous

When tested the next day, people start to forget and show some familiarity with e.g. Victoria Marsh but have forgotten where from, so rate them higher than new non-famous name

Question 17

Is big writing easier to process than small writing?

Answer 17

We tend to believe that information which is easy to process i.e. bigger is more familiar, however this does not mean you will remember it better.

Perceptual clarity and physical size has no effect on performance and we over-estimate the effect of such cues when estimating our performance

Question 18

What does the retrieval fluency heuristic propose?

Answer 18

It proposes that fast/easy retrieval of information = knowledge, but this can be deceptive

information that is easy to retrieve when you are given a cue can be more difficult to retrieve on a free recall test later

effort, not retrieval fluency, predicts performance

Question 19

Benjamin et al. (1998) investigated the retrieval fluency heuristic. What did they find?

Answer 19

They found a clear mismatch between what people predicted and how they performed. People mistakenly relied on the ease of retrieval from semantic memory to predict future performance

Question 20

What does the retrieval fluency heuristic have to do with eyewitness testimony?

Answer 20

During these situations you are questioned about something multiple times. If you are given time to consider your answers, rather than a distractor task, there is a higher retrieval fluency and therefore higher confidence in one’s answers

Question 21

Why are immediate JOLs non-diagnostic?

Answer 21

Because the judgements are made for information that is still in WM, and thus highly ‘memorable’

Question 22

Why are delayed JOLs more diagnostic?

Answer 22

Because they are based on a retrieval attempt. Without a retrieval attempt, they are also not diagnostic

Question 23

How does the learner manage learning?

Answer 23

• Making a number of assessments/decisions
• Knowing what you know and what you don’t know
• Knowing what to study/re-study, knowing when to stop studying

Question 24

What would be the appropriate study-time allocation?

Answer 24

Eliminating items you have learned, and re-study the items you haven’t learned

Question 25

What is the discrepancy reduction model?

Answer 25

• Every learner has some desired level of learning, when you’re learning the strategy is that you try to study the information you haven’t learned
• There is no time pressure
• You study hard items to minimise the discrepancy between your learning criterion and your actual learning level

Question 26

What is the region-of-proximal-learning framework?

Answer 26

• When you’re learning, you try to get to a point where you have mastered the information, but you keep studying the info that gets you closer to this goal, you pick the easy items that give you the highest payoff
• There is a time pressure

Question 27

Is testing a good method of learning?

Answer 27

Yes, testing gives you a retrieval practice, and a retrieval practice is learning

If you experience a retrieval failure, you can modify your study strategies

Testing may not increase your confidence in your own learning, but it is the most effective way of learning

Question 28

Does the timing of studying and testing affect your learning?

Answer 28

Yes

Question 29

What is more effective: spacing or mass practice?

Answer 29

Spacing, unless the test is immediately after, then it is mass practice.

Spacing results in better retention

Question 30

What are the three accounts of spacing?

Answer 30

1. Encoding variability: if you have a different study context each time you approach material, you will provide more distinctive cues, supporting retrieval, more likely to recall distinctive material if you are tested on it
2. Diminished processing: if you’re massing, eventually you get diminished returns, you’re repeating the same information over but you’re not increasing your learning, so additional study time is not productive
3. Lack of diagnostic retrieval attempts: if you’re massing and you test yourself, you will remember info well, but after a delay you get feedback, you don’t get the illusion you have learnt things well

Question 31

Are retrieval failures helpful?

Answer 31

Yes, they allow people to become more sophisticated in their study choices