Metamemory
Metamemory is your knowledge and monitoring of your own memory: judging how well you have learned something, whether you will recall it later and how sure you are of an answer. It is the part of metacognition that decides what you restudy, and when it is wrong you get the illusion of competence.
In more detail
Flavell introduced the term in the 1970s, and Nelson and Narens (1990) gave it the framework still used today. Monitoring flows up from memory to a meta level: you judge how well you know something. Control flows back down: you decide what to restudy, what to skip and when to stop. Good studying needs both, and the weak link is usually the monitoring.
Researchers study a few kinds of judgment. Ease-of-learning judgments come before studying (will this be hard?). Judgments of learning, or JOLs, come during or after studying (will I remember this later?). The feeling of knowing appears when you cannot recall an answer but sense that you know it, as in the tip-of-the-tongue state. Retrospective confidence comes after you answer (how sure am I that this is right?). Each of them can be accurate or off.
The main trap is the illusion of competence. Material feels easy while it is in front of you, and that fluency gets read as learning. Roediger and Karpicke (2006) had students either reread a text or take a test on it. The rereaders tended to predict that they would remember more, but a week later the test group remembered more. The fix is the delayed JOL: Nelson and Dunlosky (1991) found that predictions made a while after studying, looking only at the cue, were far more accurate than predictions made right after studying (a correlation of roughly .9 against .4 in the original study).
Metamemory judgments at a glance
| Judgment | When it happens | The question behind it | Common trap |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ease of learning | Before studying | How hard will this be to learn? | Material that looks short or familiar feels easy |
| Judgment of learning (JOL) | During or just after studying | Will I remember this later? | Right after studying everything feels fluent, so you overestimate |
| Feeling of knowing | When recall fails | I cannot recall it, but would I recognise it? | A familiar cue can feel like knowing |
| Retrospective confidence | After you answer | How sure am I that I am right? | Overconfidence in wrong answers |
Example
Noor reads her economics chapter and rates her grasp of elasticity at 5 out of 5. The words are still fresh in her head. That evening she tries again with only the cue, elasticity of demand, and writes the definition and one example from memory. She stalls on the formula and rates herself 2. The evening judgment was the accurate one. Moving elasticity to the top of tomorrow's list is the control half of metamemory.
How to use it
- 1
Study a topic, then wait: a few hours, or at least until you have done something else.
- 2
Look only at the cue (the question or term), not the answer.
- 3
Predict how likely you are to recall it, from 0 to 100 percent.
- 4
Test yourself, then compare the prediction with the result.
- 5
Restudy what you overrated, and note which kinds of topics you tend to overrate, because that bias is usually consistent.
How StudyPDF does this
StudyPDF gives you data to check your own judgment. Rating a flashcard Again, Hard, Good or Easy is a judgment, and quiz results show a per-concept breakdown, weakest first, so you can see where the feeling and the result differ. Ask Bo what you should focus on and he reads your per-concept mastery instead of guessing.
See also
Put it to work on your own course
Upload your lectures and ask Bo. Cited answers, plus flashcards, exams, and more built from your material.
Common questions
What is metamemory in psychology?
Metamemory is knowledge about your own memory plus the monitoring and control of it: judging what you have learned, predicting what you will remember and deciding how to study. It is the part of metacognition that is aimed at memory.
What is the illusion of competence?
It is the false feeling that you have learned material because it feels familiar and easy, usually after rereading or highlighting. The feeling comes from fluency, not from being able to recall. Testing yourself with the book closed is the quickest way to find out whether the feeling is true.