Metacognition in Later Adulthood: Spared Monitoring Can Benefit Older Adults' Self-regulation

Metacognition includes two key concepts: monitoring of internal states, and adaptive use of control strategies based on that monitoring. We review studies that indicate that aging does not materially affect the accuracy of elementary forms of monitoring encoding and retrieval states in episodic memory tasks, even though it does influence episodic memory itself. Spared monitoring accuracy can therefore serve as a basis for older adults' use of compensatory strategies to achieve learning goals, despite the influence of aging on mechanisms of learning. Metacognitive intervention studies based on this premise show greater effects on learning than traditional strategy-training approaches. Use of strategies for self-regulation, informed by monitoring, may be an important tool for older adults' effective cognitive functioning in everyday life.