Metacognition

Question 1

How is metacognition defined?

Answer 1

• the act of thinking about thinking –> reflecting on our thinking.
• ## “knowing” about “knowing”

Question 2

What is Schraw & Dennison’s (1994) theory? Early theory –> prominent in education research

Answer 2

• divided into knowledge about cognition (‘self’ and strategies’; ‘how’ (how to apply these strategies); ‘when’ and ‘why’) and regulation of cognition (‘comprehension monitoring’, ‘evaluation’, ‘planning’, ‘information management strategies’)

Question 3

What is Nelson & Narens (1990) theory of metacognition?

Answer 3

• predominant theory in metacognition theory

- acquisition; retention, retrieval.

Question 4

What are some of the suggestions of the theoretical account of metacognitive processes in cognitive abilities and personality?

Answer 4

• ‘rationality’ or ‘wisdom’
• similar to a broad cognitive ability rather than the essence of intelligence (Stankov & Dolph)
• ‘higher-order, executive processes’ that are central to intellectual functioning (Sternberg, 1997).

Question 5

What is Stankov’s model of metacognition?

Answer 5

• metacognition is both knowledge and regulation (control and monitoring)
• knowledge refers to one’s understanding of a task, one’s own ability, knowledge and many other task-related factors.
• control processes take place prior to or during a cognitive activity. It is intentional and non-automated (it includes planning)
• monitoring processes also take place prior to or during cognitive activity. It can depend on task difficullty, domain familiarity and automaticity.

Question 6

What is the self confidence factor?

Answer 6

• the concept that there exists a real, robust positive manifold for cognitive tasks
• that is, that for individuals who tend to be more confident in one task, they are usually more confident in other cognitive tasks.

Question 7

What is a method of assessing self-confidence?

Answer 7

• confidence rating (CRs)–> using percentages

- “how confident are you that your answer is correct?”

Question 8

What do accuracy, self- confidence and over/under-confidence bias refer to with regards to statistical analyses in self-confidence measures?

Answer 8

Accuracy: percentage of correct answers
Self- confidence: mean of confidence ratings
Over/under-confidence bias: difference between self-confidence and % correct.

Question 9

What does calibration/miscalibration refer to?

Answer 9

Calibration: refers to the correspondence between confidence ratings and the accuracy of the actual performance.
Miscalibration: refers to the discrepancy between confidence ratings and it reflects on quality of self-monitoring processes.

Question 10

What does over-confidence/ under-confidence refers to?

Answer 10

• over-confidence: refers to when one’s confidence is above accuracy
• under-confidence: refers to when one’s confidence is below the accuracy level.

Question 11

What is the hard-easy effect?

Answer 11

• calibration has a tendency to go from over, to under - confidence as task difficulty decreases.

Question 12

What is the ‘random’ error theory of miscalibration?

Answer 12

• a function of random errors in judgments and the associated regression to the mean.

Question 13

What is the theory of ecological reasons for miscalibration?

Answer 13

• that people are tested in such a way so that the selection of cognitive test items are unrepresentative of participants’ environments and an artefect of the experimental context i.e. it’s to do with the environment.
• we give people ‘tricky’ items (GKT) I.E. if you don’t know the answer, you’ll rely on cue validity.

Question 14

What is the theory of heuristics and biases with regards to miscalibration? (Tversky’s model)

Answer 14

• a consequence of cognitive biases i.e. systematic biases.
• confidence judgments are mediate via relevant schemas.
• miscalibrations is a results of a systematic error in schemas.

Question 15

What is the ‘person-related’ reasons, ID approach to miscalibration?

Answer 15

• is it something about the person –> are some people more susceptible to bias responses with regards to over confidence i.e. to do with the person

Question 16

What is some evidence for the testing theory/ecological validity theory?

Answer 16

with regards to geography, looked at easy and hard items:

• mean confidence was 87.33% for representative items and 76.65% for non-representative items.
• it has to do with ecological factors, how you ask confidence, an artefact of experimental context and the informal selection of cognitive test items that are unrepresentative of people’s environments
• also, we found strong individual differences in confidence ratings which PMM does not predict.

Question 17

What is some support for the individual approaches to account for miscalibration?

Answer 17

• higher reliability estimates for the under/over- confidence bias scores than for the other indices of miscalibration
• patterns of the robust positive inter-correlations between bias scores (from different tests)
• bias scores also define a general factor (but they must be considered separately from accuracy and confidence ratings).

Question 18

What are some age differences with regards to confidence?

Answer 18

• there tends to be an increase in confidence with age

Question 19

What are some gender differences with regards to confidence?

Answer 19

• men tend to be more confident.

Question 20

According to Tversky’s model of heuristics, how do our CRs come about?

Answer 20

problem+ context –> available information –> relevant schemas/heuristics –> confidence ratings

Question 21

Is there a robust positive inter-correlations between Bias scores?

Answer 21

yes, from different tests

Question 22

Are confidence scores affected by feedback?

Answer 22

• confidence scores are not significantly affected by diffferent types of feedback provided after each item and overall