Beatrice G. Kuhlmann

Older adults' use of metacognitive knowledge in source monitoring: Spared monitoring but impaired control.

While episodic memory declines with age, metacognitive monitoring is spared. The current study explored whether older adults can use their preserved metacognitive knowledge to make source guesses in the absence of source memory. Through repetition, words from two sources (italic vs. bold text type) differed in memorability. There were no age differences in monitoring this difference despite an age difference in memory. Older adults used their metacognitive knowledge to make source guesses but showed a deficit in varying their source guessing based on word recognition. Therefore, older adults may not fully benefit from metacognitive knowledge about sources in source monitoring.

Context-specific prospective-memory processing: Evidence for flexible attention allocation adjustments after intention encoding

Prospective memory (PM) is remembering to fulfill intentions in the future. Interference of unfulfilled intentions with ongoing activities reflects the allocation of attention to the PM task. Prior research has shown that, when people know in which specific context PM cues will occur, attention allocation is adaptive, with slower responses in the PM-relevant context. We examined whether people flexibly adjust their attention allocation when the PM–context association is unknown at intention encoding and must be learned on-task. Different stimulus shapes represented contexts in an ongoing task, with PM cues only occurring in trials with one specific shape. Participants informed about the PM-relevant shape responded more slowly on trials with this shape. Participants instructed that only one, unspecified shape was PM-relevant learned the PM–context association and also allocated attention flexibly, depending on context relevance. However, participants with no context-related information at intention encoding failed to learn the PM–context association, resulting in inflexible attention allocation and poorer PM performance. The present study provides evidence that people can flexibly update their attention-allocation policy, and thereby optimize their PM performance after initial intention encoding, but self-guided learning of intention–context associations appears to be limited.

Performance predictions affect attentional processes of event-based prospective memory

To investigate whether making performance predictions affects prospective memory (PM) processing, we asked one group of participants to predict their performance in a PM task embedded in an ongoing task and compared their performance with a control group that made no predictions. A third group gave not only PM predictions but also ongoing-task predictions. Exclusive PM predictions resulted in slower ongoing-task responding both in a nonfocal (Experiment 1) and in a focal (Experiment 2) PM task. Only in the nonfocal task was the additional slowing accompanied by improved PM performance. Even in the nonfocal task, however, was the correlation between ongoing-task speed and PM performance reduced after predictions, suggesting that the slowing was not completely functional for PM. Prediction-induced changes could be avoided by asking participants to additionally predict their performance in the ongoing task. In sum, the present findings substantiate a role of metamemory for attention-allocation strategies of PM.

Schema bias in source monitoring varies with encoding conditions: support for a probability-matching account.

Two experiments examined reliance on schematic knowledge in source monitoring. Based on a probability-matching account of source guessing, a schema bias will only emerge if participants do not have a representation of the source-item contingency in the study list, or if the perceived contingency is consistent with schematic expectations. Thus, the account predicts that encoding conditions that affect contingency detection also affect schema bias. In Experiment 1, the schema bias commonly found when schematic information about the sources is not provided before encoding was diminished by an intentional source-memory instruction. In Experiment 2, the depth of processing of schema-consistent and schema-inconsistent source-item pairings was manipulated. Participants consequently overestimated the occurrence of the pairing type they processed in a deep manner, and their source guessing reflected this biased contingency perception. Results support the probability-matching account of source guessing.

More Than Just Beliefs: Experience and Beliefs Jointly Contribute to Volume Effects on Metacognitive Judgments.

Experience-based cues, such as perceptual fluency, have long been thought to influence metacognitive judgments (Kelley & Jacoby, 1996; Koriat, 1997). Studies found that manipulations of perceptual fluency via changes in font and volume alter Judgments of Learning (JOLs) without influencing memory performance (Rhodes & Castel, 2008, 2009). Nonetheless, recent research (Mueller, Tauber, & Dunlosky, 2013; Mueller, Dunlosky, Tauber, & Rhodes, 2014, 2016) has challenged the notion that experience-based cues such as fluency are the primary basis for item-level JOLs, arguing instead that preexisting beliefs about these manipulations are responsible for these effects. For the first time, we compared global metacognitive judgments to item-level JOLs made during study to independently assess the contribution of beliefs and experience to volume-effects on JOLs. In 3 experiments, we found evidence for strong beliefs about volume-effects on memory, both before and after a study-test phase. However, these beliefs either did not account for the volume effect on JOLs (Experiment 3) or only partially accounted for the volume effect on JOLs (Experiments 1 and 2). Further, in Experiments 2 and 3 global performance estimates (before and after study) did not differ with respect to the volume dose whereas item-level JOLs generally varied with dose strength. Taken together, our findings suggest that both beliefs and experience-based cues contribute independently to the effects of volume on item-level JOLs, but that beliefs alone cannot fully account for the effects of volume on item-level JOLs.

Hierarchical modeling of contingency-based source monitoring: A test of the probability-matching account

According to the probability-matching account of source guessing (Spaniol & Bayen, Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition 28:631–651, 2002), when people do not remember the source of an item in a source-monitoring task, they match the source-guessing probabilities to the perceived contingencies between sources and item types. In a source-monitoring experiment, half of the items presented by each of two sources were consistent with schematic expectations about this source, whereas the other half of the items were consistent with schematic expectations about the other source. Participants’ source schemas were activated either at the time of encoding or just before the source-monitoring test. After test, the participants judged the contingency of the item type and source. Individual parameter estimates of source guessing were obtained via beta-multinomial processing tree modeling (beta-MPT; Smith & Batchelder, Journal of Mathematical Psychology 54:167–183, 2010). We found a significant correlation between the perceived contingency and source guessing, as well as a correlation between the deviation of the guessing bias from the true contingency and source memory when participants did not receive the schema information until retrieval. These findings support the probability-matching account.

Aging, source memory, and the experience of "remembering".

ABSTRACT In a previous study, we found source memory for perceptual features to differentiate between younger but not older adults’ reports of recollective (“remember”; R) and “know” (K) experiences. In two experiments with younger (17–30 years) and older (64–81 years) participants, we examined whether memory for meaningful speaker sources would accompany older adults’ recollective experience. Indeed, memory for male and female speakers (but not partial memory for gender; Experiment 1) as well as bound memory for speakers and their facial expressions (Experiment 2) distinguished between both younger and older adults’ RK reports. Thus, memory for some sources forms a common basis for younger and older adults’ retrieval experience. Nonetheless, older adults still showed lower objective source memory and lower subjective source-attribution confidence than younger adults when reporting recollective experiences, suggesting that source memory is less relevant to their retrieval experience than for younger adults.

Multidimensionality of Younger and Older Adults’ Age Stereotypes: The Interaction of Life Domain and Adjective Dimension

Abstract Objectives: The authors investigated the sources of age-stereotype multidimensionality with the help of personal everyday statements that differed with respect to life domain (e.g., family and partnership vs financial matters) and the adjective dimension reflected in the behavior (e.g., autonomous vs instrumental behavior). Method: A total of 368 statements reflecting autonomy-, instrumentality-, or integrity-related behaviors in five different life domains were generated. Sixty-nine younger (18–26 years) and 74 older (60–84 years) participants rated the typicality of each statement for either a “young adult” or an “old adult.” Results: Occurrence and direction of age stereotypes varied by life domain and adjective dimension and ultimately depended on the specific combination of both factors (i.e., a significant interaction). For example, old adults were expected to be optimistic about religious aspects but not about their health, fitness, and appearance. Discussion: The findings highlight the multidimensionality and complexity of age stereotypes based on a wide array of personal everyday statements.

A meta-analysis of inhibitory-control deficits in patients diagnosed with Alzheimer's dementia.

Objective: The authors conducted meta-analyses to determine the magnitude of performance impairments in patients diagnosed with Alzheimer’s dementia (AD) compared with healthy aging (HA) controls on eight tasks commonly used to measure inhibitory control. Method: Response time (RT) and error rates from a total of 64 studies were analyzed with random-effects models (overall effects) and mixed-effects models (moderator analyses). Results: Large differences between AD patients and HA controls emerged in the basic inhibition conditions of many of the tasks with AD patients often performing slower, overall d = 1.17, 95% CI [0.88–1.45], and making more errors, d = 0.83 [0.63–1.03]. However, comparably large differences were also present in performance on many of the baseline control-conditions, d = 1.01 [0.83–1.19] for RTs and d = 0.44 [0.19–0.69] for error rates. A standardized derived inhibition score (i.e., control-condition score - inhibition-condition score) suggested no significant mean group difference for RTs, d = −0.07 [−0.22–0.08], and only a small difference for errors, d = 0.24 [−0.12–0.60]. Effects systematically varied across tasks and with AD severity. Conclusions: Although the error rate results suggest a specific deterioration of inhibitory-control abilities in AD, further processes beyond inhibitory control (e.g., a general reduction in processing speed and other, task-specific attentional processes) appear to contribute to AD patients’ performance deficits observed on a variety of inhibitory-control tasks. Nonetheless, the inhibition conditions of many of these tasks well discriminate between AD patients and HA controls.

Metamemory expectancy illusion and schema-consistent guessing in source monitoring.

Source monitoring involves attributing information to one of several sources. Schemas are known to influence source-monitoring processes, with enhanced memory for schematically unexpected sources (inconsistency effect) and biased schema-consistent source guessing. The authors investigated whether this guessing bias reflects a compensatory guessing strategy based on metacognitive awareness of the inconsistency effect, or reflects other strategies as proposed by the probability-matching account. To determine people’s awareness of the inconsistency effect, the authors investigated metamemory predictions in a source-monitoring task. In four experiments, participants studied object word items that were presented with one of two scene labels as sources. Items were either presented with their schematically expected source (e.g., kitchen—oven) or with their schematically unexpected source (e.g., kitchen—toothpaste). In Experiments 1 and 2, participants predicted their item memory and their source memory after each source–item presentation. In Experiment 1, people incorrectly predicted both their item memory and, even more so, their source memory to be better for expected than for unexpected source–item pairs. In Experiment 2, this effect replicated with different types of judgment probes. Crucially, item-wise memory predictions did not predict source guessing. In Experiment 3, metacognitive awareness of the inconsistency effect on source memory changed during the test phase. However, metamemory convictions never predicted source guessing. In Experiment 4, the authors manipulated participants’ convictions concerning the impact of schematic expectations on source memory. These convictions also did not predict source guessing. Thus, the results show that schema-consistent source guessing does not reflect a compensatory strategy.