Vered Halamish

In metamemory research it is commonly assumed that learners spontaneously monitor their learning progress. To assess monitoring, participants are asked to provide judgments of learning (JOLs) while memorizing information, usually on a percentage scale. Recent evidence that providing JOLs has a reactive effect on memory performance, however, suggests that the processes involved when participants are requested to provide JOLs in experiments are different from those that otherwise occur. The present research examined whether the experimental requirement to report JOLs, rather than the requirement to assess learning, triggers the differential processing which ultimately results in JOL reactivity. Two hypotheses were examined. According to the overt-response hypothesis, JOL reactivity emerges solely from the requirement to report internal assessments that are otherwise done covertly. To test this hypothesis, participants studied related and unrelated word pairs and made JOLs either overtly, covertly, or not at all. According to the numerical-response hypothesis, JOL reactivity emerges from the requirement to translate qualitative, non-numerical internal assessments of learning into numerical responses. To test this hypothesis, participants made overt JOLs on a percentage scale, a Likert scale, a yes/no scale, or did not make JOLs. The results yielded JOL reactivity across all response formats (Experiment 2) and response scales (Experiment 3), except when participants were under-engaged in making covert JOLs (Experiments 1a, 1b, and 1c). These findings are inconsistent with both hypotheses and suggest instead that JOL reactivity emerges from the requirement to assess learning. Implications for the nature and occurrence of spontaneous monitoring are discussed.

This study examined associations between vocabulary knowledge, reading fluency, cognitive flexibility, and metacognitive monitoring accuracy in reading comprehension among fifth-grade students. Participants (N = 104) completed measures of cognitive–linguistic abilities and reading comprehension, with global metacomprehension judgments after reading and item-level confidence ratings. Metacognitive monitoring accuracy was assessed using calibration of global metacomprehension judgments and item-level confidence ratings. Calibration bias (confidence minus performance) indexed miscalibration direction, and its absolute value indexed calibration accuracy. Resolution reflected discrimination between correct and incorrect item-level responses. Structural equation modeling (SEM) was used exploratorily to examine theoretically motivated direct and indirect pathways via reading comprehension. Vocabulary knowledge showed the strongest associations with calibration accuracy and resolution, fully mediated by comprehension. Reading fluency showed a dual pattern: it contributed positively to resolution through comprehension, while also showing direct associations with lower calibration accuracy, indicating greater miscalibration and overconfident judgment tendencies among more fluent readers. Cognitive flexibility was not significantly related to any monitoring index. By jointly examining distinct indices of monitoring accuracy and separating comprehension-mediated from direct pathways, the study clarifies how cognitive–linguistic abilities may support or bias metacognitive monitoring in developing readers. Linguistic abilities, particularly vocabulary and fluency were central to students’ comprehension monitoring accuracy.

To uncover how people monitor their learning and memory, researchers often elicit learners' predictions of their future memory performance immediately after studying, so-called immediate judgments of learning (JOLs). Previous research on immediate JOL reactivity shows that soliciting immediate JOLs can change memory. It is not well-understood, however, under which conditions making JOLs improves, impairs, or does not affect memory and which processes contribute to immediate JOL reactivity. The present study provides a comprehensive meta-analysis of immediate JOL reactivity based on 344 effect sizes from 175 independent experiments reported in 49 records with a total sample size of 15,079 adults. Overall, making JOLs improved memory performance (g = 0.22, 95% confidence interval [0.17, 0.27]). Whereas a meta-analysis of a subset of effect sizes with word pairs yielded virtually identical results (g = 0.23), we also found that JOL reactivity differed considerably depending on word-pair relatedness: Related pairs revealed small-to-moderate positive reactivity (g = 0.44), whereas unrelated pairs showed small negative reactivity (g = -0.09). Moderator analyses indicated that the size and direction of JOL reactivity varied depending on experimental characteristics (e.g., study materials, memory tests, or manipulating making JOLs within or between participants). Moderator effects were only partially consistent with existing theoretical accounts. Results revealed indications of publication bias favoring positive reactivity over no reactivity or negative reactivity. This study attests that making JOLs can change memory and highlight the need for refined theories to explain when and why these effects occur. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

Curiosity, an intrinsic desire to seek new information, benefits motivation and learning. While curiosity is associated with novelty, less is known about how the repetition of a question without its answer affects curiosity and memory. In two experiments, participants viewed 60 trivia questions, half of which were repeated, and rated their curiosity to learn the answers. Repeated questions had their answers revealed during the second presentation, and participants were given a cued-recall test after 24 h. We found that curiosity ratings remained constant across presentations, but when repeated and non-repeated questions were intermixed, participants were more curious about non-repeated questions, which were relatively more novel (Experiment 1). However, when participants guessed answers before studying them (pretesting), they were more curious about repeated questions (Experiment 2). Curiosity ratings also increased across presentations, perhaps reflecting greater cognitive agency motivated by an eagerness to verify one's guess. Overall, the subjective experience of curiosity appears to be influenced by both relative novelty, as manipulated through repetition, and task demands, specifically whether individuals engage in pretesting, indicating that curiosity-based learning is shaped by various cognitive operations.

Published studies found that predicting one’s future memory during learning (judgments of learning, JOLs) consistently improved cued-recall performance for related word pairs. In contrast, making JOLs had inconsistent effects on memory for unrelated pairs, with most studies finding null effects and some finding detrimental effects. This study reports data from 17 experiments in which participants either made or did not make JOLs for related and unrelated word pairs in their everyday language. Making JOLs increased the difference in memory performance between related and unrelated pairs in every experiment. Although almost all experiments showed numerically positive JOL reactivity for related pairs and numerically negative JOL reactivity for unrelated pairs, either effect was reliable in just half of the experiments. Small-scale meta-analyses revealed small-to-moderate positive reactivity for related pairs and small-to-moderate negative reactivity for unrelated pairs. Language of word pairs (German, Hebrew, or English) moderated positive reactivity and experimental setting (controlled or unsupervised online) moderated negative reactivity, but none of the other moderators we examined—presence of an additional pair type, study time, total number of pairs—impacted reactivity. Experiments that showed positive reactivity for related pairs tended not to show negative reactivity for unrelated pairs, and vice versa. Overall, these findings indicate that negative JOL reactivity for unrelated pairs is similarly large and robust as positive reactivity for related pairs. They favor the cue-strengthening hypothesis with dual-task costs over other accounts and raise the practically relevant possibility that monitoring could have detrimental effects on learning in educational settings. All data are freely available online.

Research has observed that monitoring one's own learning modifies memory for some materials but not for others. Specifically, making judgments of learning (JOLs) while learning word pairs improves subsequent cued-recall memory performance for related word pairs but not for unrelated word pairs. Theories that have attempted to explain this pattern of results assume that people attend to and process cue-target relatedness during learning more when making JOLs than they spontaneously do when not making JOLs. The present research directly tested this relatedness-processing assumption with unrelated and related word pairs as well as with hitherto unexamined materials: identical word pairs. In three experiments, participants studied word pairs while either making or not making JOLs. Results revealed that making JOLs improved memory for related word pairs as well as for identical word pairs, but not for unrelated word pairs. Importantly, in two of the experiments, participants were further asked to judge at test whether each cue appeared with an unrelated, related, or identical target before attempting to recall it. Results revealed that making JOLs improved the accuracy of these relatedness judgments independently from its effect on recall, thus providing direct evidence that people process cue-target relatedness when making JOLs more than they spontaneously do when not making JOLs. These findings contribute to a more comprehensive understanding of why judging one's own learning can modify memory and, more broadly, suggest that instructions to monitor learning can direct people's attention to information that is not or less processed otherwise. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Predicting what we will remember and forget is crucial for daily functioning. We were interested in whether evaluating something as likely to be remembered or forgotten leads to enhanced memory for both forms of information relative to information that was not judged for memorability. We presented participants with lists of words to remember for a later test and on each list, participants were asked to identify some words that they were confident that they would remember and some words that they believed that they were most likely to forget on the test. Relative to words not given a prediction, memory was enhanced for words participants selected as likely to be remembered but also for words participants indicated were most likely to be forgotten. We also examined whether requiring participants to engage in self-cued directed forgetting by selecting a subset of words to be remembered or forgotten produced a memory advantage for these words. Results again demonstrated enhanced memory for selected words regardless of whether they were designated as to-be-remembered or to-be-forgotten. Thus, we demonstrate a reactivity type of effect such that when participants are asked to select certain items, this process can enhance memory regardless of the reason for selecting the item, potentially arising as a result of these words becoming more distinct and/or receiving additional processing. As such, the present results are consistent with the richness of encoding and metacognition modifying attention to cues accounts of reactivity.

Rememberers are often motivated to remember certain pieces of information more than they are motivated to remember other pieces. The literature suggests th