Aging, metamemory regulation and executive functioning

Abstract

In this chapter we deal with metamemory regulation processes and concentrate mainly on how they are related to learning in episodic memory. In recent years an increasing amount of the literature has emphasized conceptual similarities between metamemory regulation and executive-frontal functioning. Different data have also highlighted that age-related cognitive differences might, in many cases, be explained by the decline of executive-frontal functioning that accompanies aging. Thus, in the present chapter we evaluate the relationship of aging and metamemory regulation among the cognitive decline frontal hypothesis of aging. We focus specifically on two measures of metamemory regulation allowing evaluating monitoring and control processes: feeling-of-knowing (FOK) and capacity to adjust study strategies to task demand, respectively. After having presented evidence supporting the executive-frontal hypothesis of FOK, we present a series of experiments addressing the questions of age-related differences in metamemory monitoring and control, and of possible mediation of this age effect by the age-related decline in executive-frontal functioning. The findings support the ideas that the monitoring process of episodic memory FOK and the control process of adjusting study time to task difficulty are impaired in older adults. Moreover, these declines can be explained by the decline of executive-frontal functioning associated to aging. Finally, types of mechanisms pertaining to FOK monitoring and to adjustment control process on which executive-frontal functioning and aging may have an impact are discussed.