Metacognition and Control in Human Learning and Memory

Columbia Univ New York Morningside, New York NY

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Abstract

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): This proposal investigates the relation between people's metacognitions and their subsequent allocation of study time. On the assumption, that is tested empirically in a series of optimization studies, that there is a region of proximal learning in which items at a particular level of difficulty will benefit most from study time allocated to them, this research seeks to determine if people study so as to optimize their learning or if their study allocation behavior is maladaptive. The specific questions that are addressed are (a) Is there a region of proximal learning? (b) Does people's study time allocation behavior appropriately tap into that region? (c) What is the mechanism underlying people's judgments of learning, and are there constraints imposed by that mechanism that either limit or facilitate appropriate study time allocation? (d) What are the time-dependent dynamics of information uptake? Are people's judgments of learning appropriately sensitive to them? And, finally, (e) are the so-called "illusions of knowing" that have been widely touted as necessarily implying that people, if guided by their own metacognitions, will exhibit maladaptive time allocation strategies, really responsible for dysfunctional strategies, or might these admittedly faulty predictions nevertheless result in appropriate learning strategies? The long-term goal of this research is to develop a formal model of people's metacognitively-guided study-time allocation behavior.