Judgments of Learning for Source Information in a Metamemory Paradigm: the Judgment of Source Learning

Abstract

This project introduces a judgment of source learning (JOSL), an evaluative judgment by which participants make predictions about their ability to remember the source or modality of stimuli in the future (at test). The JOSL is an open-ended judgment that encapsulates a) participants confidence in the information they are able to retrieve at the time of the judgment, b) participants confidence in the strategy that they are using for retrieval, and c) participants confidence in how effective their current retrieval and monitoring strategies will be in the future. Younger and older adults studied a paired associate list comprised of unrelated text-sound, or text-picture stimuli. They provided judgments of learning for paired-associate memory (JOLs), and some provided judgments of source learning for target source memory (JOSLs). Participants also provided strategy reports for study. JOSLs did not reliably predict source recall, and level of source recall varied as a function of target type rather than condition. Age differences were found in JOL resolution, where younger adults were more accurate in their prediction of future paired associate memory than older adults. Confidence gammas showed that both younger and older adults could reliably identify which items they answered correctly; however, the confidence gamma for source recall of sound targets was reliably negative, mostly likely a result of a PICTURE response bias and overconfidence in wrongly source attributed sound targets.