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Updated: May 14, 2025
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A Real-world What-Where-When Memory Test
Published on: May 16, 2017
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Domain generality in metacognitive ability: A confirmatory study across visual perception, episodic memory, and
Astrid Emilie Lund1, Camile Maria Costa Corrêa2, Francesca Fardo3
1Department of Psychology, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience, King's College London.
Summary
Metacognitive capacity shows domain-general correlations across visual perception and memory. This suggests a shared metacognitive "g-factor," though domain-specific factors also influence confidence judgments.
Area of Science:
- Cognitive Psychology
- Neuroscience
Background:
- Metacognition involves monitoring and controlling cognitive processes, crucial for subjective confidence.
- The domain-generality versus domain-specificity of metacognition remains an open research question.
- Previous studies faced methodological limitations like low statistical power and uncontrolled cognitive performance.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the domain-general nature of metacognitive ability.
- To test metacognitive capacity across visual perceptual, episodic memory, and semantic memory domains.
- To address methodological limitations of prior research on metacognition.
Main Methods:
- A confirmatory, preregistered study design.
- Utilized a novel adaptive "trivia" task assessing nutrition and global economics.
- Tested metacognitive bias and efficiency in visual perception, episodic memory, and semantic memory.
Main Results:
- Found significant correlations in metacognitive bias and efficiency across domains (15%-20% shared variance).
- Results support a domain-general metacognitive "g-factor" after controlling for cognitive ability.
- Observed unexpectedly low metacognitive correlation between two semantic memory tasks.
Conclusions:
- Metacognitive ability exhibits substantial domain-general components, challenging purely domain-specific models.
- The findings provide robust evidence for a metacognitive "g-factor".
- Further research is needed to understand interindividual differences in metacognitive priors, especially for semantic memory domains.
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