On the complexity of metacognitive judgments of memory: evidence from retrospective confidence, feeling of knowing, and older adults

Abstract

Dissociations in types of memory tasks emerge when comparing feeling-of-knowing (FOK) judgments, predictions of upcoming performance, and retrospective confidence. This pattern has been used to construct theories of metacognitive access to memory, particularly in memory-impaired groups. In particular, older adults' metacognitive sensitivity appears to vary between episodic (impaired) and semantic (intact) memory. However, this could be explained by the limitations of metacognitive measures and/or memory differences. We aimed to test these dissociations of metacognition with aging by comparing metacognitive efficiency in episodic and semantic tasks using two types of judgment: retrospective confidence judgments (RCJs) and FOK judgments. Metacognitive efficiency was estimated in 240 participants aged 19-79 years using a hierarchical Bayesian framework. Results showed that metacognitive efficiency for RCJs declined with age in the semantic task, even though task performance increased with age, while metacognitive efficiency was stable in the episodic task. Surprisingly, metacognitive efficiency was very low (although significantly higher than zero) for both FOK tasks regardless of age compared to similar previous studies. We suggested this might be due to the online testing. These results point to metacognition being multifaceted and varying according to judgment, domains, and populations.

Keywords: confidence judgments; episodic memory; feeling of knowing; healthy aging; metamemory; semantic memory.

Figure 1.

Procedure of the episodic and semantic memory tasks.

Figure 2.

Distribution of (a) percent correct recall, (b) recognition performance (measured with d′), (c) metacognitive bias, and (d) metacognitive efficiency (M_ratio) and linear model regression line across age in episodic (black dots and lines) and semantic tasks (gray dots and lines) and for FOK judgments and RCJs.

Figure 3.

Relationship between the proportion of correct recognition and the confidence level for (a) episodic RCJs, (b) semantic RCJs, (c) episodic FOK judgments, and (d) semantic FOK judgments in younger adults (<60 years old) and older adults (>59 years old).

Figure 4.

Relationship between the proportion of correct (prior) recall and the level of FOK in (a) episodic and (b) semantic tasks in younger adults (<60 years old) and older adults (>59 years old).