Exploring a mnemonic debiasing account of the underconfidence-with-practice effect

Area of Science:

• Cognitive Psychology
• Educational Psychology
• Metacognition

Background:

• Judgments of learning (JOLs) are metacognitive assessments of future recall.
• The underconfidence-with-practice (UWP) effect describes JOLs underestimating actual recall improvement with repeated study.
• Existing theories suggest foresight bias contributes to the UWP effect.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the role of foresight bias in the UWP effect.
• To examine how the timing and cueing of JOLs influence the UWP effect and practice's debiasing effects.
• To test whether delaying JOLs can moderate the UWP effect.

Main Methods:

• Three experiments were conducted involving repeated study of cue-target pairs.
• Participants made judgments of learning (JOLs) at different time points and with different cueing methods (cue alone vs. cue-target pair).
• Recall performance was measured after repeated study and JOLs were compared to actual recall.

Main Results:

• The UWP effect was most pronounced for items that induced a foresight bias.
• Delaying JOLs reduced the effectiveness of practice in debiasing judgments, thus moderating the UWP effect.
• This moderation occurred specifically when delayed JOLs were prompted by the cue alone, mimicking testing conditions.

Conclusions:

• Foresight bias plays a significant role in the underconfidence-with-practice effect.
• The timing and cueing of JOLs are critical factors influencing metacognitive accuracy.
• Prompting delayed JOLs with cues alone, similar to retrieval practice, can help moderate the UWP effect by reducing the impact of foresight bias.