A study of anxiety and learning in children.

"A general anxiety scale and a test anxiety scale were administered to 747 grade school children. Out of this group, 24 HA-LA pairs of subjects were given 2 modified paired-associate learning tasks, separated by neutral, failure, and success instructions. The results showed no differences due to instructions, but LA Ss performed better than HA Ss in the second task. Alternative explanations for the lack of differences on the first task were offered. The study was interpreted as positive evidence for the validity of the anxiety scales." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The role of memory for past test in the underconfidence with practice effect.

According to the Memory for Past Test (MPT) heuristic, judgments of learning (JOLs) may be based, in part, on memory for the correctness of answers on a previous test. The authors explored MPT as the source of the underconfidence with practice effect (UWP; A. Koriat, L. Sheffer, & H. Ma'ayan, 2002), whereby Trial 1 overconfidence switches to underconfidence by Trial 2. Immediate and delayed JOLs were contrasted because only immediate JOLs demonstrate UWP. Consistent with MPT for immediate JOLs, Trial 1 test performance better predicted Trial 2 JOLs than did Trial 2 test performance. Delayed JOLs showed the reverse. Furthermore, items forgotten on Trial 1 but remembered on Trial 2 contributed disproportionately to UWP, but only with immediate JOLs. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Anticipation interval and age differences in verbal learning.

Age differences were demonstrated to be greater at the shorter anticipation interval than at the longer in 2 paired-associate studies. Earlier work had suggested that this age-pace interaction was not a true learning effect but a performance deficit due to the difficulty the older person has in responding rapidly. The 2nd study provided evidence that relatively few of the errors made by the old Ss at the fast pace could be attributed to insufficient time to emit a learned response. Even when Ss were permitted to take as much time as needed to respond, the age-pace interaction was found. Several possible explanations for such a learning deficit were noted. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Local and Global Judgments of Confidence.

Studies of calibration have shown that people's mean confidence in their answers (local confidence) tends to be greater than their overall estimate of the percentage of correct answers (global confidence). Moreover, whereas the former exhibits overconfidence, the latter often exhibits underconfidence. Three studies present evidence that global underconfidence reflects a failure to make an allowance for correct answers that are likely to result from mere guessing and can be eliminated by informing participants of the dubious normative status of estimates below 50% (i.e., chance). Previously reported discrepancies between global and local confidence, it is concluded, arise less from possible methodological artifacts in assessment of local confidence than from normatively inappropriate assessments of global confidence. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Temporal contexts: Filling the gap between episodic memory and associative learning.

People can create temporal contexts, or episodes, and stimuli that belong to the same context can later be used to retrieve the memory of other events that occurred at the same time. This can occur in the absence of direct contingency and contiguity between the events, which poses a challenge to associative theories of learning and memory. Because this is a learning and memory problem, we propose an integrated approach. Theories of temporal contexts developed in the memory tradition provide interesting predictions that we test using the methods of associative learning to assess their generality and applicability to different settings and dependent variables. In 4 experiments, the integration of these 2 areas allows us to show that (a) participants spontaneously create temporal contexts in the absence of explicit instructions; (b) cues can be used to retrieve an old temporal context and the information associated with other cues that were trained in that context; and (c) the memory of a retrieved temporal context can be updated with information from the current situation that does not fit well with the retrieved memory, thereby helping participants to best adapt their behavior to the future changes of the environment. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Judgments of learning reflect encoding fluency: Conclusive evidence for the ease-of-processing hypothesis.

According to the ease-of-processing hypothesis, judgments of learning (JOLs) rely on the ease with which items are committed to memory during encoding—that is, encoding fluency. Conclusive evidence for this hypothesis does not yet exist because encoding fluency and item difficulty have been confounded in all previous studies. To disentangle the effects of encoding fluency and item difficulty on JOLs, we used a variant of the learner–observer–judge method in which participants observed the study phase of another participant and indicated his or her JOLs. At the same time, the to-be-studied word pairs were concealed by strings of symbols. Our experiment revealed that participants use self-paced study time as a cue for JOLs when they themselves have studied and recalled word pairs before. This metacognitive monitoring of study time provides strong support for the ease-of-processing hypothesis. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Associative interference in the paired-associate learning of remitted and nonremitted schizophrenics.

This experiment replicates a previous study which showed that recently hospitalized schizophrenics and normals did not differ in susceptibility to associative interference. 80 long-term schizophrenics were divided into remitted and nonremitted groups according to current mental status. The nonremitted Ss tended to exhibit more associative interference than either the remitted Ss or the normals in the previous study (.05     

Encoding fluency is a cue used for judgments about learning.

The authors used paired-associate learning to investigate the hypothesis that the speed of generating an interactive image (encoding fluency) influenced 2 metacognitive judgments: judgments of learning (JOLs) and quality of encoding ratings (QUEs). Results from Experiments 1 and 2 indicated that latency of a keypress indicating successful image formation was negatively related to both JOLs and QUEs even though latency was unrelated to recall. Experiment 3 demonstrated that when concrete and abstract items were mixed in a single list, latency was related to concreteness, judgments, and recall. However, item concreteness and fluency influenced judgments independently of one another. These outcomes suggest an important role of encoding fluency in the formation of metacognitive judgments about learning and future recall. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Age differences in retention as a function of learning.

The hypothesis that observed age-related decrements in recall scores derive primarily from degree of acquisition rather than from retention deficits per se was investigated. 40 elderly and 30 young Ss learned 9 paired associates under equal learning opportunity, learning to criterion or overlearning conditions. Retention was measured at 20 min. and 1 wk. Elderly Ss learned less on equal exposure and required more trials to criterion, but once having learned the material retained it as well as young Ss. Trials beyond criterion did not enhance the retention scores of elderly Ss and may have introduced negative motivational factors. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Judgments of frequency and recency: How they relate to reports of subjective awareness.

In 2 experiments, the author explored the relations of remember versus familiar ratings to judgments of frequency (JOFs) and to judgments of recency (JORs). In both cases, remembered items were associated with more accurate memory judgments. In general, familiar items were judged to have occurred less frequently and less recently than remembered items. However, JOFs and JORs associated with familiar items were more accurate than chance. Implications for theories of remember versus familiar ratings, JOFs, and JORs are considered. Some basic findings that constrain these theories are that (a) remember versus familiar ratings were less sensitive than JOF to presentation frequency and less sensitive than JOR to recency and (b) although remember versus familiar ratings are strongly related to both JOF and JOR, as measured by gamma, the relations are far from perfect. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A direct laboratory comparison of Pavlovian conditioning and traditional associative learning.

24 adult human Ss were presented with a learning task which combined salivary conditioning with traditional associative learning: paired-associate learning of a 50 word Russian-English vocabulary and serial motor learning of a sequence of 100 adjacent bolts. Conditioning proceeded best when Ss did not know they were being conditioned, while associative learning was reasonably effective when Ss knew what they were associating. The view is expressed that the present data support strongly the hypothesis that Pavlov's laws of conditioning are primarily laws of unconscious biological learning. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The influence of delaying judgments of learning on metacognitive accuracy: A meta-analytic review.

Many studies have examined the accuracy of predictions of future memory performance solicited through judgments of learning (JOLs). Among the most robust findings in this literature is that delaying predictions serves to substantially increase the relative accuracy of JOLs compared with soliciting JOLs immediately after study, a finding termed the delayed JOL effect. The meta-analyses reported in the current study examined the predominant theoretical accounts as well as potential moderators of the delayed JOL effect. The first meta-analysis examined the relative accuracy of delayed compared with immediate JOLs across 4,554 participants (112 effect sizes) through gamma correlations between JOLs and memory accuracy. Those data showed that delaying JOLs leads to robust benefits to relative accuracy (g = 0.93). The second meta-analysis examined memory performance for delayed compared with immediate JOLs across 3,807 participants (98 effect sizes). Those data showed that delayed JOLs result in a modest but reliable benefit for memory performance relative to immediate JOLs (g = 0.08). Findings from these meta-analyses are well accommodated by theories suggesting that delayed JOL accuracy reflects access to more diagnostic information from long-term memory rather than being a by-product of a retrieval opportunity. However, these data also suggest that theories proposing that the delayed JOL effect results from a memorial benefit or the match between the cues available for JOLs and those available at test may also provide viable explanatory mechanisms necessary for a comprehensive account. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Illusions of competence for phonetically, orthographically, and semantically similar word pairs.

Illusions of competence are thought to arise when judgements of learning (JOLs) made in the presence of intact cue-target pairs during study create a “foresight bias,” such that JOLs are inflated by the apparent association between a cue and a target, despite the lack of benefit this association has for recall performance. For example, Castel, McCabe, and Roediger (2007) recently demonstrated an illusion of competence for identical word pairs (mouse—mouse). In two experiments, the authors examined possible sources for this overconfidence, including phonetic, semantic, and orthographic similarity. An illusion of competence was found for homophones, synonyms, orthographically similar, and unrelated items, whereas no illusion of competence was found for word pairs with a relatively high forward-semantic association. Self-paced study times indicated that encoding fluency was not closely associated with the magnitude of overconfidence. Error data revealed participants may have been engaging in strategic responding in order to maximise correct recall. Our results underscore the importance of considering factors that influence both JOLs and recall performance when considering sources of (mis)calibration in absolute accuracy. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Examining the nature of impairment in visual paired associate learning in amnestic mild cognitive impairment.

Objective: Visual spatial learning is impaired in mild cognitive impairment (MCI) although the nature of this impairment is not clear. This study investigated the nature and magnitude of errors made by adults with amnestic MCI (aMCI) when learning pattern-location paired associations in a continuous manner. Method: Visual associate learning was measured using the Continuous Paired Associate Learning (CPAL) task in which 30 adults who met clinical criteria for aMCI and 30 matched controls were required to learn a set of associations between patterns and locations across increasing memory loads (two, four, six, and eight). Results: As hypothesized, the aMCI group made more total errors than controls for all memory loads above two. However, the rate of increase in errors with memory load in the aMCI group was approximately twice that for controls. Conclusions: In controls, errors on the CPAL task reflected almost exclusively difficulty in memory. In the aMCI group, errors on the CPAL reflected limitations in associative learning but also in short-term memory and response monitoring. These results suggest that impairments in specific aspects of executive function and working memory might contribute to poor performance on visual paired associate learning in aMCI. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Judgments about judgments: The dissociation of consideration price and transaction commitment judgments.

There are many contexts in which people make judgments about prior judgments. For example, Internet shopping bots (e.g., NexTag.com) allow consumers to search for products and, if the price is too high, list a price at which they would consider making the purchase (i.e., base judgment). If the price drops to this level, the vendor generates an e-mail inviting the consumer to execute the transaction at the reduced price (i.e., contingent judgment). The authors show that the consideration price depends on the content of retrieved information, whereas the willingness to execute the transaction at the consideration price depends on the ease-of-retrieving the information. The authors use different offer prices to encourage the consumer to retrieve information consistent with different product quality levels. The authors also select offer prices so that information retrieval is more difficult at moderate offer prices than at high or low offer prices. Accordingly, the authors show that the consideration price increases as the offer price increases, but the willingness to execute the transaction at the consideration price is greater when there are high and low, as opposed to moderate, offer prices. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Aging and recollection in the accuracy of judgments of learning.

Dual-process theories propose that episodic memory performance reflects both recollection of prior details as well as more automatic influences of the past. The authors explored the idea that recollection mediates the accuracy of judgments of learning (JOLs) and may also help explain age differences in JOL accuracy. Young and older adults made immediate JOLs at study and then completed recognition or recall tests that included a recollect/familiar judgment. JOLs were found to be strongly related to recollected items but not to items remembered on the basis of familiarity. The pattern was weaker in older adults, consistent with age-related declines in recollection. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Age differences in the monitoring of learning: Cross-sectional evidence of spared resolution across the adult life span.

Researchers of metacognitive development in adulthood have exclusively used extreme-age-groups designs. We used a full cross-sectional sample (N = 285, age range: 18–80) to evaluate how associative relatedness and encoding strategies influence judgments of learning (JOLs) in adulthood. Participants studied related and unrelated word pairs and made JOLs. After a cued-recall test, retrospective item strategy reports were collected. Results revealed developmental patterns not available from previous studies (e.g., a linear age-related increase in aggregate JOL resolution across the life span). They also demonstrated the value of investigating multiple cues' influences on JOLs. Multilevel regression models showed that both relatedness and effective strategy use positively and independently influenced JOLs. Furthermore, effective strategy use was responsible for higher resolution of JOLs for unrelated items (relative to related items). The effects of relatedness and strategy use with JOLs did not interact with age. The monitoring of learning is spared by adult development despite age differences in learning itself. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Aging and monitoring associative learning: Is monitoring accuracy spared or impaired?

Mixed lists of associatively related and unrelated paired associates were used to study monitoring of associative learning. Older and younger adults produced above-chance levels of relative accuracy, as measured by intraindividual correlations (γ) of judgments of learning (JOLs) with item recall. JOLs were strongly influenced by relatedness, and this effect was greater for older adults. Relative accuracy was higher for unrelated than for related pairs. Correlations of JOLs with item recall for a randomly yoked learner indicated that access to one's own encoding experiences increased relative accuracy. Both age groups manifested a contrast effect (lower JOLs for unrelated items when mixed with related items). Aging appears to spare monitoring of encoding, even though it adversely affects associative learning. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

"How good is the evidence for a production deficiency among learning disabled students?": Correction to Shepherd et al.

Reports an error in "How good is the evidence for a production deficiency among learning disabled students" by Margaret J. Shepherd, Lynn M. Gelzheiser and Roberta A. Solar (Journal of Educational Psychology, 1985[Oct], Vol 77[5], 553-561). Figures 1 and 2 (p. 557 and 559, respectively) are reversed. The captions are correct, but Figure 1 should be above the caption for Figure 2 and Figure 2 should be above the caption for Figure 1. (The following abstract of the original article appeared in record 1986-14779-001.) Investigated the spontaneous use of mnemonic strategies by learning disabled (LD) and non-LD children and adolescents to examine whether LD Ss can be distinguished from their non-LD peers on the basis of strategy use and recall. In Exp I, 105 LD and 105 non-LD 9-15 yr olds were administered a picture study/recall task, in which the strategies of interest were categorical organization during study and clustering during recall. In Exp II, 140 LD and 140 non-LD 11-17 yr olds were administered a paired-associate recall task, in which the strategy of interest was elaboration. In both studies, LD Ss earned lower mean recall scores than did the non-LD Ss. As a group, LD Ss did not differ from non-LD Ss in the use of categorical organization during study but showed less categorical clustering at recall. Fewer LD Ss used elaboration. Despite these differences, recall and strategy use were not useful predictors of classification as LD or non-LD and were only weak to moderate correlates of academic achievement. (24 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Mending metacognitive illusions: A comparison of mnemonic-based and theory-based procedures.

Previous research indicated that learners experience an illusion of competence during learning (termed foresight bias) because judgments of learning (JOLs) are made in the presence of information that will be absent at test. The authors examined the following 2 procedures for alleviating foresight bias: enhancing learners' sensitivity to mnemonic cues pertaining to ease of retrieval and inducing learners to resort to theory-based judgments as a basis for JOLs. Both procedures proved effective in mending metacognitive illusions--as reflected in JOLs and self-regulation of study time--but only theory-based debiasing yielded transfer to new items. The results support the notion that improved metacognition is 1 key to optimizing transfer but also that educating subjective experience does not guarantee generalization to new situations. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)