Retrospective judgments of confidence in a complex span task.

Area of Science:

• Cognitive Psychology
• Neuroscience
• Metacognition Research

Background:

• Metamemory monitoring research has historically focused on long-term memory, with less attention paid to working memory (WM).
• Understanding metacognition for WM is crucial for a complete picture of memory self-assessment.
• The role of attentional resources in WM and metacognitive judgments requires further investigation.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the ability to self-assess working memory operations.
• To explore how cognitive load, manipulated via the TBRS model, impacts WM performance and metacognitive evaluations.
• To analyze the relationship between attentional resources, WM, and metacognitive accuracy.

Main Methods:

• Thirty-four participants completed 16 series of complex span tasks.
• Confidence ratings were collected using a verbal recall paradigm.
• Cognitive load was systematically manipulated according to the TBRS model.

Main Results:

• Working memory recall performance was significantly affected by cognitive load.
• Standard serial position effects were observed in recall accuracy.
• Metacognitive evaluations demonstrated a similar pattern to recall performance, indicating accurate self-assessment.

Conclusions:

• Participants exhibited metacognitive sensitivity, making accurate item-by-item retrospective judgments about their WM performance.
• These findings suggest that metacognitive access extends to newly formed working memory contents.
• The study bridges a gap in metacognition research by focusing on working memory self-assessment.