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Errors committed with high confidence are hypercorrected.

B Butterfield1, J Metcalfe

  • 1Department of Psychology, Columbia University, New York, New York 10027, USA. butterfi@paradox.columbia.edu

Journal of Experimental Psychology. Learning, Memory, and Cognition
|November 21, 2001
PubMed
Summary
This summary is machine-generated.

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Highly confident errors are surprisingly easier to correct than low-confidence errors. This suggests people have a strong metacognitive ability to distinguish correct from incorrect information, improving learning.

Area of Science:

  • Cognitive Psychology
  • Human Memory Research

Background:

  • Memory models suggest high confidence correlates with strong memory retrieval.
  • Stronger memory traces may interfere with learning correct feedback, especially for errors.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate the relationship between confidence in erroneous responses and subsequent learning.
  • To test whether high-confidence errors are harder to correct than low-confidence errors.

Main Methods:

  • Participants provided responses and confidence ratings.
  • Responses were retested after receiving feedback on errors.

Main Results:

  • Contrary to expectations, highly confident errors were most readily corrected.
  • Participants frequently identified the correct response when both correct and erroneous options were presented.

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Conclusions:

  • High confidence in an error does not hinder correction; it may even facilitate it.
  • Humans possess sophisticated metacognitive abilities to discern correct from incorrect information.