Inter-Item Differences in Metacognitive Judgments: Insights into the Collective Wisdomware Underlying These Judgments

Area of Science:

• Cognitive Psychology
• Metacognition
• Social Cognition

Background:

• The self-consistency model posits confidence arises from shared cues.
• Consensuality and replicability effects are key predictions of this model.
• Previous work extended this to judgments of learning (JOLs) and feelings of knowing (FOKs).

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate if the assumption of uniformly shared collective wisdomware holds across different items.
• To identify item-level variations in consensuality and replicability effects for metacognitive judgments.
• To explore the nature of collective wisdomware and its dependence on item characteristics.

Main Methods:

• Reanalysis of existing data on confidence judgments, JOLs, and FOKs.
• Consolidation of data from diverse samples (university students, school children).
• Analysis of metacognitive judgments for consensuality and replicability, examining inter-item differences and correlates.

Main Results:

• The assumption of uniformly shared collective wisdomware was not universally supported across all items.
• Reliable inter-item differences in the magnitude of consensuality and replicability effects were identified for confidence, JOLs, and FOKs.
• Split-half reliability analyses confirmed these item-level variations are stable properties.

Conclusions:

• Collective wisdomware is not uniformly shared; its influence varies significantly based on specific item characteristics.
• Understanding item-level variations is crucial for accurately modeling metacognitive judgments.
• Reliance on shared cues in metacognition is contingent on the nature of the judgment items themselves.