Laboratory vs. naturalistic prospective memory task predictions: young adults are overconfident outside of the laboratory

Cauvin, Stéphanie; Moulin, Chris J. A.; Souchay, Céline; Schnitzspahn, Katharina M.; Kliegel, Matthias

doi:10.1080/09658211.2018.1540703

“…Such developmental differences between the three EF may further contribute to (age-)differences in children's focal, nonfocal and time-based PM performance. In addition, the literature suggests that other cognitive domains are involved in successful PM, such as planning, goal management, intelligence, processing speed and metacognition (e.g., Cauvin, Moulin, Souchay, Schnitzspahn, & Kliegel, 2018;Kliegel, McDaniel, & Einstein, 2000;. Future studies should administer an even broader variety of cognitive tests, allowing to compare the role of EF to the impact of other cognitive resources on PM development.…”

Section: Limitations and Future Directionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

How executive functions are associated with event-based and time-based prospective memory during childhood

Zuber

¹

,

Mahy

²

,

Kliegel

³

2019

Cognitive Development

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

A key developmental task of childhood is to gain autonomy and independence from parents and caregivers. Critical to this individualization process is the development of prospective memory (PM), the capacity to remember to carry out future intentions. In recent studies, children's PM performance has been associated with executive functions (EF). A closer inspection of the literature, however, suggests a differential impact of the three EF (updating, inhibition, and shifting) across different PM task types. The current study examined EF and PM capacities of 212 6-to 11year-old children, examining for the first time both focal and nonfocal event-based PM tasks as well as a time-based PM task in a single sample. Results show that age-differences did not persist above and beyond age differences in children's executive resources. Specifically, updating predicted children's performance on all PM tasks, inhibition predicted performance on both eventbased PM tasks, whereas shifting was specifically deployed by the nonfocal event-based task. Supplementary analyses of the time-based PM task illustrate how children monitor the progression of time and how preparatory processes support PM task performance. In sum, the current study presents the first comprehensive look at the specific role of age and three core EF in school-aged children's PM performance.

show abstract

“…Metacognitive bias does not occur in the same way for all tasks, populations and individuals: some experiments find that people are overconfident in their memory ability, but other experiments find that people are underconfident [10,[14][15][16][17][18]. Therefore, we aim to create a metacognitive intervention which can potentially remedy biases in either direction.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The effect of metacognitive training on confidence and strategic reminder setting

Engeler¹,

Gilbert²

2020

Preprint

2

0

1

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Individuals often choose between remembering information using their own memory ability versus using external resources to reduce cognitive demand (i.e. ‘cognitive offloading’). For example, to remember a future appointment an individual could choose to set a smartphone reminder or depend on their unaided memory ability. Previous studies investigating strategic reminder setting found that participants set more reminders than would be optimal, and this bias towards reminder-setting was predicted by metacognitive underconfidence in unaided memory ability. Due to the link between underconfidence in memory ability and excessive reminder setting, the aim of the current study was to investigate whether metacognitive training is an effective intervention to a) improve metacognitive judgment accuracy, and b) reduce bias in strategic offloading behaviour. Participants either received metacognitive training which involved making performance predictions and receiving feedback on judgment accuracy, or were part of a control group. As predicted, metacognitive training increased judgment accuracy: participants in the control group were significantly underconfident in their memory ability, whereas the experimental group showed no significant metacognitive bias. However, contrary to predictions, both experimental and control groups were significantly biased toward reminder-setting, and did not differ significantly. Therefore, reducing metacognitive bias was not sufficient to eliminate the bias towards reminders. We suggest that the reminder bias likely results in part from erroneous metacognitive evaluations, but that other factors such as a preference to avoid cognitive effort may also be relevant. Finding interventions to mitigate these factors could improve the adaptive use of external resources.

show abstract

“…Metacognitive bias does not occur in the same way for all tasks, populations and individuals: some experiments find that people are overconfident in their memory ability, but other experiments find that people are underconfident [ 10 , 14 – 18 ]. Therefore, we aim to create a metacognitive intervention which can potentially remedy biases in either direction.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The effect of metacognitive training on confidence and strategic reminder setting

Engeler

¹

,

Gilbert²

2020

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Individuals often choose between remembering information using their own memory ability versus using external resources to reduce cognitive demand (i.e. ‘cognitive offloading’). For example, to remember a future appointment an individual could choose to set a smartphone reminder or depend on their unaided memory ability. Previous studies investigating strategic reminder setting found that participants set more reminders than would be optimal, and this bias towards reminder-setting was predicted by metacognitive underconfidence in unaided memory ability. Due to the link between underconfidence in memory ability and excessive reminder setting, the aim of the current study was to investigate whether metacognitive training is an effective intervention to a) improve metacognitive judgment accuracy, and b) reduce bias in strategic offloading behaviour. Participants either received metacognitive training which involved making performance predictions and receiving feedback on judgment accuracy, or were part of a control group. As predicted, metacognitive training increased judgment accuracy: participants in the control group were significantly underconfident in their memory ability, whereas the experimental group showed no significant metacognitive bias. However, contrary to predictions, both experimental and control groups were significantly biased toward reminder-setting, and did not differ significantly. Therefore, reducing metacognitive bias was not sufficient to eliminate the bias towards reminders. We suggest that the reminder bias likely results in part from erroneous metacognitive evaluations, but that other factors such as a preference to avoid cognitive effort may also be relevant. Finding interventions to mitigate these factors could improve the adaptive use of external resources.

show abstract

Laboratory vs. naturalistic prospective memory task predictions: young adults are overconfident outside of the laboratory

Cited by 20 publications

References 24 publications

How executive functions are associated with event-based and time-based prospective memory during childhood

How executive functions are associated with event-based and time-based prospective memory during childhood

The effect of metacognitive training on confidence and strategic reminder setting

The effect of metacognitive training on confidence and strategic reminder setting

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About