Self-monitoring recall during two tasks after traumatic brain injury: a preliminary study

Impaired recall is a common consequence of traumatic brain injury (TBI). Predicting recall during learning is a critical part of self-monitoring. Adults with TBI and noninjured controls made recall predictions of noun pairs that varied in prediction timing (immediate, delayed), and predictions of narrative information that varied in salience (main idea and details) and explicitness (stated and implied). For both groups, delayed recall predictions for noun pairs and stated (narrative) information were relatively accurate, whereas immediate recall predictions of noun pairs and delayed predictions of implied information were relatively inaccurate. Both groups were more confident making predictions of stated information than implied information. Neither predictive accuracy nor confidence generalized across tasks. Working memory load across tasks and individual differences are proposed explanations. The lack of generalization highlights the need to train domain or task-specific self-monitoring.