When do we know that we do not know? An examination of metacognitive processes in visual working memory

Area of Science:

• Cognitive Psychology
• Neuroscience
• Human Memory

Background:

• Metacognitive judgments in long-term memory often rely on retrieval success.
• Prior research suggests immediate identification of poorly remembered items may occur without full retrieval.
• The mechanisms of metacognition in visual working memory (VWM) remain incompletely understood.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate whether metacognitive judgments in VWM are based on retrieval attempts or immediate familiarity.
• To test hypotheses regarding the basis of confidence judgments in visual working memory.
• To differentiate between retrieval-based and familiarity-based metacognition in VWM.

Main Methods:

• Three experiments using a color reproduction task with a hidden color wheel.
• Participants reproduced colors from VWM, searching from a random starting point.
• Adapted mixture modeling analysis to assess response strategies and confidence levels.

Main Results:

• Participants consistently engaged in retrieval attempts, even with unfamiliar cues.
• Little evidence was found for immediate guessing or familiarity-based judgments.
• Quick guessing occurred only when novel objects were presented as cues at test.

Conclusions:

• Metacognitive judgments in VWM typically involve retrieval attempts, even for poorly encoded information.
• The findings challenge the notion that VWM metacognition solely relies on familiarity.
• Active retrieval processes play a significant role in assessing the contents of visual working memory.