The Cognitive Basis of JOLs

Despite the wide acknowledgment of the importance of JOLs for successful learning, the cognitive basis of JOLs is relatively poorly understood. Although there is a general agreement that actual memory processes contribute to the JOL assignment, the extent of this contribution is under ongoing debate. Traditionally, the understanding was that people have privileged access to memory content and are thus able to directly monitor the strength of memory traces and translate these into recall probabilities (JOL). These original ideas were generally referred to as “direct access” or “trace access” views (e.g. Arbuckle & Cuddy, 1969; King, Zechmeister & Shaughnessy, 1980). One important implication of direct/trace access views is

have comparable effects on metamemorical monitoring judgments (see Schwartz, Benjamin & Bjork, 1997). Although JOLs and test performance are often found to be sensitive to the same experimental manipulations, this is not invariably the case (Castel, McCabe & Roediger, 2007; Dunlosky & Nelson, 1994; Koriat & Bjork, 2005; Koriat & Bjork, 2006; Tide & Leboe, 2009). For example, studies have shown that participants sometimes underestimate the memory performance benefits of using imagery encoding strategies as opposed to rote rehearsal (for a summary see Dunlosky & Nelson, 1994).

Further evidence against direct/trace access theories come from psycho- pharmacological studies and observations of neuropsychological patients. If the ability to make JOLs is reliant on the same systems that support memory processes, drugs that are known to affect memory performance should have a comparable effect on metamemory. Experiments have shown, however, that benzodiazepines, such as Midazolam and Triazolam, produce severe anterograde amnesia without affecting the magnitude of JOL responses (Merritt, Hirshman, Hsu & Berrigan, 2005; Weingartner, Joyce, Sirocco, Adams, Eckardt, George & Lister, 1993; but also see Izaute & Bacon, 2005). For example, Merritt et al. (2005) found that participants who were given Midazolam injections produced JOLs that were equivalent to participants who were given saline injections, despite demonstrating inferior memory performance. Surprisingly, participants had been informed about the adverse effects that Midazolam would have on memory, but this seemed not to influence their memory monitoring. In similar vein, Nelson, Graf, Dunlosky, Marlatt, Walker & Luce (1998) found that alcohol intoxication had a detrimental

effect on memory that participants seemed relatively unable to correct for when making metamemory judgments.

Observations of neuropsychological patients with damage to the frontal lobes have also revealed differential impairments in metamemory abilities relative to memory, when compared to control participants (see Pannu & Kaszniak, 2005). For example, Vilkki, Servo & Surma-aho (1998) found that patients with damage to the right frontal lobe were significantly worse at predicting recall for words compared to patients with right posterior damage and control participants. These findings were later replicated using memory predictions for spatial locations (Vilkki, Surma-aho & Servo, 1999).

The above observations led some researchers to hypothesise that JOLs are not products of memory strength readings, but that people have to rely on other sources of information when making JOLs. These alternative views describe JOL assignments as inferential processes, which involve the evaluation of available cues that people perceive as indicators of future memory performance (Koriat, 1997; Schwartz, 1994; Schwartz et al., 1997). Koriat’s (1997) influential “cue-utilization approach” systematically describe a range of such cues and divides them into specific categories of intrinsic, extrinsic and mnemonic cues (see Figure 1.3). Intrinsic cues pertain to certain pre-experimental characteristic of the study stimuli. Examples of such characteristics are, in the case of word pairs, the associative relatedness between the cue and the target words, and, in the case of single words, imagery value. Hence, intrinsic cues are inherent to the stimuli and not dependent

on the learner or the study situation. Extrinsic cues, in opposition, are directly related to the study regime, examples of which are the total number of items to be studied and the duration of time available for studying each of them. Koriat (1997) expresses a particular concern that people generally seem to underestimate the predictive value of such extrinsic cues. Finally, mnemonic cues concern experiences assembled during the learning (or retrieval) situation. The participant’s choice of encoding strategy (for example imagery encoding versus rote learning) would be one such important source of information.

JOL

output

Intrinsic

cues

Extrinsic

cues

Mnemonic

cues

Figure 1.3 Schematic illustration of Koriat’s (1997) cue-utilization approach.

As outlined at the start of this sub-section, the core of direct/trace access views is the reading and translating of memory trace strengths. Koriat’s (1997) cue- utilization view also acknowledges that JOLs can be based on actual memory

processing, just in a more indirect way. Rather than relying on privileged access to memory traces, participants can, for example, actively engage in retrieval attempts and base their JOLs on the outcome of these attempts. What is most critical about Koriat’s viewpoint, however, is that JOLs can be, and probably often are, based on factors other than memory and hence research should focus on understanding and identifying the most reliable factors (cues). Inferential theories, such as the cue- utilization approach, readily explain why JOLs are sometimes inaccurate and do not show the same sensitivities to experimental variables as subsequent memory does. For example people may assign disproportional importance to the wrong kind of cues (Benjamin et al., 1998) or they may ignore cues that are in fact informative (Dunlosky & Nelson, 1994; Koriat, 1997). To assess the value of different types of cues within a given context, or for a particular type of stimuli, it is necessary to determine and compare participants’ JOL accuracy scores across experiments. The different conceptualisations and calculation of JOL accuracy will be the focus of the next sub-section of this chapter.