Asher Koriat

Monitoring one's own knowledge during study : A cue-utilization approach to judgments of learning

How do people monitor their knowledge during acquisition? A cue-utilization approach to judgments of learning (JOLs) is outlined, distinguishing 3 types of cues for JOLs: intrinsic, extrinsic, and mnemonic. In 4 experiments using paired-associates learning, item difficulty (intrinsic) exerted similar effects of JOLs and recall. In contrast, the extrinsic factors of list repetition, item repetition within a list, and stimulus duration affected JOLs less strongly than recall, supporting the proposition that extrinsic factors are discounted in making JOLs. Although practice impaired calibration, increasing underconfidence, it did improve resolution (i.e., the recall-JOL correlation). This improvement was seen to reflect a shift in the basis of JOLs with practice, from reliance on intrinsic factors, towards greater reliance on mnemonic-based heuristics.

The Cambridge Handbook of Consciousness: Metacognition and Consciousness

This chapter traces the development of the problem of consciousness in Western philosophy from the time of the ancient Greeks to the middle of the 20th century. The core problem of consciousness focuses on the nature of subjectivity. The chapter focuses on what has become the central issue in consciousness studies, which is the problem of integrating subjectivity into the scientific view of the world. The mainstream view has not long been mainstream, for the problem of consciousness cannot strike one at all until a fairly advanced scientific understanding of the world permits development of the materialism presupposed by the mainstream view. It was the scientific revolution of the 16th and 17th centuries that forced the problem of the Christian dogma into prominence. In philosophy, the 1950s saw the beginning of a self-conscious effort to understand the mind and, eventually, consciousness as physical through and through in essentially scientific terms.

Dissociating knowing and the feeling of knowing: Further evidence for the accessibility model.

Predictions derived from the accessibility model of the feeling of knowing (FOK; A. Koriat, 1993) were tested regarding the basis of FOK and the reason for its accuracy. According to the model, FOK monitors the accessibility of partial information about unrecallable targets, and its validity depends on the accuracy of that information. General knowledge questions were classified in terms of their tendency to precipitate answers in recall (accessibility, or ACC), and the proportion of such answers that were correct (output-bound accuracy, or OBA). FOK increased with increasing ACC independent of actual recognition memory, and the FOK-recognition correlation varied dramatically with OBA: It was positive for high-OBA questions, but nil or negative for low-OBA questions. The results suggest that people have no privileged access to the contents of their memory over and above what they can retrieve from it.

Memory in naturalistic and laboratory contexts: distinguishing the accuracy-oriented and quantity-oriented approaches to memory assessment.

A distinction is drawn between the quantity-oriented approach to memory that has dominated traditional laboratory research, and the accuracy-oriented approach that is emerging in the study of everyday memory. This distinction is shown to underlie some troubling confusions in the interpretation of empirical findings. In particular, the recall-recognition paradox, which involves the claimed superiority of recall over recognition memory in naturalistic settings, is shown to stem from the common confounding between memory property (quantity vs. accuracy) and 2 other variables that have not generally been distinguished--test format (production vs. selection) and report option (free vs. forced reporting). Three laboratory experiments reveal the fundamentally different roles played by report option and test format in accuracy-based and quantity-based memory research. Implications for memory assessment, metamemory, and the everyday-laboratory controversy are discussed.

The intricate relationships between monitoring and control in metacognition: lessons for the cause-and-effect relation between subjective experience and behavior.

Do we run away because we are frightened, or are we frightened because we run away? The authors address this issue with respect to the relation between metacognitive monitoring and metacognitive control. When self-regulation is goal driven, monitoring effects control processes so that increased processing effort should enhance feelings of competence and feelings of knowing. In contrast, when self-regulation is data driven, such feelings may be based themselves on the feedback from control processes, in which case they should decrease with increasing effort. Evidence for both monitoring-based control and control-based monitoring occurring even in the same situation is presented. The results are discussed with regard to the issue of the cause-and-effect relation between subjective experience and behavior.

The Combined Contributions of the Cue-Familiarity and Accessibility Heuristics to Feelings of Knowing

A model for the basis of feeling of knowing (FOK) is proposed, which combines 2 apparently competing accounts, cue familiarity (L. M. Reder, 1987), and accessibility (A. Koriat, 1993). Both cue familiarity and accessibility are assumed to contribute asynchronously to FOK, but whereas the effects of familiarity occur early, those of accessibility occur later and only when cue familiarity is sufficiently high to drive the interrogation of memory for potential answers. General information questions were used to orthogonally manipulate cue familiarity and accessibility. As expected, both familiarity and accessibility enhanced FOK judgments, but the effects of accessibility were found mostly when familiarity was high. This interactive pattern was replicated when FOK judgments were delayed but not when they were immediate. The results support the proposed cascaded model of FOK but also imply a differentiation between 2 variants of the accessibility heuristic.

Illusions of Competence in Monitoring One's Knowledge During Study

The monitoring of ones own knowledge during study suffers from an inherent discrepancy between study and test situations: Judgments of learning (JOLs) are made in the presence of information that is absent but solicited during testing. The failure to discount the effects of that information when making JOLs can instill a sense of competence during learning that proves unwarranted during testing. Using a paired-associates task, the authors examined aspects of the cue-target relationships that seemed likely contributors to such illusions of competence. These aspects have the potential to create differential strengths of a priori and a posteriori associations, that is, the probability with which a cue, when presented alone, elicits the corresponding target versus the perceived association between the cue and the target when both are present. The authors argue that the former has the greater influence on later recall, whereas the latter has the greater influence on JOLs.

Comparing objective and subjective learning curves: judgments of learning exhibit increased underconfidence with practice.

When participants studied a list of paired associates for several study-test cycles, their judgments of learning (JOLs) exhibited relatively good calibration on the 1st cycle, with a slight overconfidence. However, a shift toward marked underconfidence occurred from the 2nd cycle on. This underconfidence-with-practice (UWP) effect was very robust across several experimental manipulations, such as feedback or no feedback regarding the correctness of the answer, self-paced versus fixed-rate presentation, different incentives for correct performance, magnitude and direction of associative relationships, and conditions producing different degrees of knowing. It was also observed both in item-by-item JOLs and in aggregate JOLs. The UWP effect also occurred for list learning and for the memory of action events. Several theoretical explanations for this counterintuitive effect are discussed.

Semantic facilitation in lexical decision as a function of prime-target association

Using a lexical decision task, the relationship between magnitude of semantic facilitation and degree of prime-target relatedness was examined as a function of amount of attention allocated to the prime and the prime-target interval. In none of the conditions studied did amount of facilitation vary with prime-target relatedness, a finding which was seen as inconsistent with the spread of activation account of the association effect in lexical decision. Both forward (prime to target) and backward (target to prime) associations were effective in producing semantic facilitation. Backward associates, however, were effective only during earlier stages of the experiment and forward associations only during later stages. The implications of these findings for the processes underlying the association effect was discussed.

Memory metaphors and the real-life/laboratory controversy: Correspondence versus storehouse conceptions of memory

The study of memory is witnessing a spirited clash between proponents of traditional laboratory research and those advocating a more naturalistic approach to the study of “real-life” or “everyday” memory. The debate has generally centered on the “what” (content), “where” (context), and “how” (methods) of memory research. In this target article, we argue that the controversy discloses a further, more fundamental breach between two underlying memory metaphors, each having distinct implications for memory theory and assessment: Whereas traditional memory research has been dominated by the storehouse metaphor, leading to a focus on the number of items remaining in store and accessible to memory, the recent wave of everyday memory research has shifted toward a correspondence metaphor, focusing on the accuracy of memory in representing past events. The correspondence metaphor calls for a research approach that differs from the traditional one in important respects: in emphasizing the intentional –representational function of memory, in addressing the wholistic and graded aspects of memory correspondence, in taking an output-bound assessment perspective, and in allowing more room for the operation of subject-controlled metamemory processes and motivational factors. This analysis can help tie together soine of the what, where, and how aspects of the “real-life/laboratory” controversy. More important, however, by explicating the unique metatheoretical foundation of the accuracy-oriented approach to memory we aim to promote a more effective exploitation of the correspondence metaphor in both naturalistic and laboratory research contexts.