Metamemory or Socratic awareness, a type of metacognition, is both the introspective knowledge of one's own memory capabilities (and strategies that can aid memory) and the processes involved in memory self-monitoring. This self-awareness of memory has important implications for how people learn and use memories. When studying, for example, students make judgments of whether they have successfully learned the assigned material and use these decisions, known as "judgments of learning", to allocate study time.
History Descartes, among other philosophers, marveled at the phenomenon of what we now know as metacognition.Metcalfe, J. (2000). "Metamemory: Theory and data", pp. 197–211 in E. Tulving & F.I.M. Craik (Eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Memory. New York: Oxford University Press. "It was not so much thinking that was indisputable to Descartes, but rather thinking about thinking. What he could not imagine was that the person engaged in such self-reflective processing did not exist." In the late 19th century, Bowne and James contemplated, but did not scientifically examine, the relationship between memory judgments and memory performance.
During the reign of behaviorism in the mid-20th century, unobservable phenomena such as metacognition were largely ignored. One early scientific study of metamemory was Hart's 1965 study, which examined the accuracy of feeling of knowing (FOK). FOK occurs when an individual feels that they have something in memory that cannot be recalled, but would be recognized if seen.Radvansky, G. (2006). Human Memory. Boston: Pearson Education Group. Hart expanded upon limited investigations of FOK which had presupposed that FOK was accurate. The results of Hart's study indicate that FOK is indeed a relatively accurate indicator of what is in memory.
In a 1970 review of memory research, Tulving and Madigan concluded that advances in the study of memory might require the experimental investigation of “one of the truly unique characteristics of human memory: its knowledge of its own knowledge”. It was around the same time that John H. Flavell coined the term "metamemory" in a discussion on the development of memory. Since then, numerous metamemory phenomena have been studied, including judgments of learning, feelings of knowing, knowing that you don't know, and know vs. remember.
Nelson and Narens proposed a theoretical framework for understanding metacognition and metamemory. In this framework there are two levels: the object level (for example, cognition and memory) and the meta level (for example, metacognition and metamemory). Information flow from the meta level to the object level is called control, and information flow from the object level to the meta level is called monitoring. Both monitoring and control processes occur in acquisition, retention, and retrieval. Examples of control processes are allocating study time and selecting search strategies, and examples of monitoring processes are ease of learning (EOL) and feeling of knowing (FOK) judgments. Monitoring and control might be further divided into subprocesses depending on the types of inputs, computations, and outputs required at different stages of the memory process. For example, monitoring abilities appear to be sufficiently different during encoding-based and retrieval-based metamemory judgments to constitute different monitoring systems.McDonough, I. M., Enam, T., Kraemer, K. R., Eakin, D. K., & Kim, M. (2021). Is there more to metamemory? An argument for two specialized monitoring abilities. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 28(5), 1657-1667.doi:10.3758/s13423-021-01930-z
The study of metamemory has some similarities to introspection in that it assumes that a memorizer is able to investigate and report on the contents of memory. Current metamemory researchers acknowledge that an individual's introspections contain both accuracies and distortions and are interested in what this conscious monitoring (even if it is not always accurate) reveals about the memory system.
Theories Cue familiarity hypothesis The cue familiarity hypothesis was proposed by Reder and Ritter after completing a pair of experiments which indicated that individuals can evaluate their ability to answer a question before trying to answer it. This finding suggests that the question (cue) and not the actual memory (target) is crucial for making metamemory judgments. Consequently, this hypothesis implies that judgments regarding metamemory are based on an individual's level of familiarity with the information provided in the cue. Therefore, an individual is more likely to judge that they know the answer to a question if they are familiar with its topic or terms and more likely to judge that they do not know the answer to a question which presents new or unfamiliar terms.
Accessibility hypothesis The accessibility hypothesis suggests that memory will be accurate when the ease of processing (accessibility) is correlated with memory behaviour; however, if the ease of processing is not correlated with memory in a given task, then the judgments will not be accurate. Proposed by Koriat, the theory suggests that participants base their judgments on retrieved information rather than basing them on the sheer familiarity of the cues. Along with the lexical unit, people may use partial information that could be correct or incorrect. According to Koriat, the participants themselves do not know whether the information they are retrieving is correct or incorrect most of the time. The quality of information retrieved depends on individual elements of that information. The individual elements of information differ in strength and speed of access to the information. Research by Vigliocco, Antonini, and Garrett (1997) and Miozzo and Caramazza (1997) showed that individuals in a tip-of-the-tongue (TOT) state were able to retrieve partial knowledge (gender) about the unrecalled words, providing strong evidence for the accessibility heuristic.
Competition hypothesis
The competition hypothesis is best described using three principles. The first is that many brain systems are activated by visual input, and the activations by these different inputs compete for processing access. Secondly, competition occurs in multiple brain systems and is integrated amongst these individual systems. Finally, competition can be assessed (using top-down neural priming) based on the relevant characteristics of the object at hand.
More competition, also referred to as more interfering activation, leads to poorer recall when tested. This hypothesis contrasts with the cue-familiarity hypothesis because objects similar to the target can influence one's FOK, not just similar associates of the cues. It also contrasts with the accessibility hypothesis wherein the more accessible information is, the higher the rating, or the better the recall. According to the competition hypothesis, less activation would result in better recall. Whereas the accessibility view predicts higher metamemory ratings in interference conditions, the competition hypothesis predicts lower ratings.
Interactive hypothesis
The interactive hypothesis constitutes a combination of the cue familiarity and accessibility hypotheses. According to this hypothesis, cue familiarity is employed initially, and only once cue familiarity fails to provide enough information to make an inference does accessibility come into play. This "cascade" structure accounts for differences in the time required to make a metamemory judgment; judgments which occur quickly are based on cue familiarity, while slower responses are based on both cue familiarity and accessibility.
Phenomena Judgment of learning Judgments of learning (JOLs) or metamemory judgments are made when knowledge is acquired. Metamnemonic judgments are based on different sources of information, and target information is important for JOLs. Intrinsic cues (based on the target information) and mnemonic cues (based on previous JOL performance) are especially important for JOLs. Judgment of learning can be divided into four categories: ease-of-learning judgments, paired-associate JOLs, ease-of-recognition judgments, and free-recall JOLs.
Ease-of-Learning Judgments: These judgments are made before a study trial. Subjects can evaluate how much studying will be required to learn the particular information presented to them (typically cue-target pairs). These judgments can be categorized as preacquisition judgments which are made before the knowledge is stored. Little research addresses this kind of judgment; however, evidence suggests that JOLs are at least somewhat accurate at predicting learning rates. Therefore, these judgments occur in advance of learning and allow individuals to allot study time to the material that they are required to learn.
Paired-Associate Judgment of Learning: These judgments are made at the time of study on cue-target pairs and are responsible for predicting later memory performance (on cued recall or cued recognition). One example of paired-associate JOLs is the cue-target JOL, where the subject determines the retrievability of the target when both the cue and target of the to-be-learned pair are presented. Another example is the cue-only JOL, where the subject must determine the retrievability of the target when only the cue is presented at the time of judgment. These two types of JOLs differ in their accuracy in predicting future performance, and delayed judgments tend to be more accurate.
Ease-of-Recognition Judgments: This type of JOL predicts the likelihood of future recognition. Subjects are given a list of words and asked to make judgments concerning their later ability to recognize these words as old or new in a recognition test. This helps determine their ability to recognize the words after acquisition.
Free-Recall Judgments of Learning: This type of JOL predicts the likelihood of future free-recall. In this situation, subjects assess a single target item and judge the likelihood of later free-recall. It may appear similar to ease-of-recognition judgments, but it predicts recall instead of recognition.
Feeling of knowing judgments
Feeling of Knowing (FOK) judgments refer to the predictions an individual makes of being able to retrieve specific information (i.e., regarding his or her knowledge for a specific subject) and, more specifically, whether that knowledge exists within the person's memory. These judgments are made either prior to the memory target being found or following a failed attempt to locate the target. Consequently, FOK judgments focus not on the actual answer to a question, but rather on whether an individual predicts that he or she does or does not know the answer (high and low FOK ratings respectively). FOK judgments can also be made regarding the likelihood of remembering information later on and have proven to give fairly accurate indications of future memory. An example of FOK is if you can't remember the answer when someone asks you what city you're traveling to, but you feel that you would recognize the name if you saw it on a map of the country.