The concreteness effect on judgments of learning: Evaluating the contributions of fluency and beliefs

Abstract

Researchers have often determined how cues influence judgments of learning (JOLs; e.g., concrete words are assigned higher JOLs than are abstract words), and recently there has been an emphasis in understanding why cues influence JOLs (i.e., the mechanisms that underlie cue effects on JOLs). The analytic-processing (AP) theory posits that JOLs are constructed in accordance with participants' beliefs of how a cue will influence memory. Even so, some evidence suggests that fluency is also important to cue effects on JOLs. In the present experiments, we investigated the contributions of participants' beliefs and processing fluency to the concreteness effect on JOLs. To evaluate beliefs, participants estimated memory performance in a hypothetical experiment (Experiment 1), and studied concrete and abstract words and made a pre-study JOL for each (Experiments 2 and 3). Participants' predictions demonstrated the belief that concrete words are more likely to be remembered than are abstract words, consistent with the AP theory. To evaluate fluency, response latencies were measured during lexical decision (Experiment 4), self-paced study (Experiment 5), and mental imagery (Experiment 7). Number of trials to acquisition was also evaluated (Experiment 6). Fluency did not differ between concrete and abstract words in Experiments 5 and 6, and it did not mediate the concreteness effect on JOLs in Experiments 4 and 7. Taken together, these results demonstrate that beliefs are a primary mechanism driving the concreteness effect on JOLs.

Beliefs about memory decline in aging do not impact judgments of learning (JOLs): A challenge for belief-based explanations of JOLs

“…6). Furthermore, ample evidence indicates that other beliefs that people have about memory impact their JOLs (e.g., Hu et al, 2015;Jia et al, 2016;Mueller & Dunlosky, 2017;Mueller et al, 2016;Mueller et al, 2014;Mueller et al, 2013;Susser, Jin, & Mulligan, 2016;Witherby & Tauber, 2017). Additional evidence of the influence of people's beliefs comes from research about memory self-efficacy, which pertains to people's beliefs about how well they can remember information (e.g., Hertzog, Dixon, & Hultsch, 1990).…”

“…Recent research has established that people's beliefs about the impact of a cue can influence their JOLs (e.g., Hu et al, 2015;Jia et al, 2016;Mueller & Dunlosky, 2017;Mueller, Dunlosky, & Tauber, 2016;Mueller, Dunlosky, Tauber, & Rhodes, 2014;Mueller, Tauber, & Dunlosky, 2013;Susser, Jin, & Mulligan, 2016;Undorf & Zimdahl, 2019;Witherby & Tauber, 2017). One way that this contribution of memory beliefs has been evaluated is with questionnaires probing for people's beliefs about their memory (Besken, 2016;Jia et al, 2016;Koriat, Bjork, Sheffer, & Bar, 2004;Kornell, Rhodes, Castel, & Tauber, 2011;Li et al, 2017;Mueller et al, 2016;Mueller, Dunlosky, Tauber, & Rhodes, 2014;Mueller et al, 2013;Price, McElroy, & Martin, 2016;Witherby & Tauber, 2017, 2018.…”

“…As one example, Witherby and Tauber (2017) used a questionnaire to explore people's beliefs about the impact of word concreteness on memory. Participants read a hypothetical experiment in which students learned a list of concrete words (e.g., table) and abstract words (e.g., loyalty) and received a memory test.…”

Metacognition and memory of emotional information: Judgments of learning predict the affectivity congruence effect in free recall

“…In this study we focus on judgments of learning that relate to the probability of future recall of each individual item (Mazzoni & Cornoldi, 1993;Nelson, 1993). Judgments of learning are thought to be based not only on multiple cues, such as general beliefs about one's memory functioning and experience with similar types of tasks in the past (Hertzog, Dixon, & Hultsch, 1990;Mazzoni & Comoldi, 1993), but also on the properties of the items themselves (such as word frequency or concreteness, Koriat, 1997;Witherby & Tauber, 2017). JOLs are known to be impacted by the affective value of stimuli: they are typically higher for emotional than for neutral items (Hourihan, Fraundorf, & Benjamin, 2017;Nomi, Rhodes, & Cleary, 2013;Tauber & Dunlosky, 2012, Tauber, Dunlosky, Urry, & Opitz, 2017Witherby & Tauber, 2018;Zimmerman & Kelley, 2010).…”

If it is easy to remember, then it is not secure: Metacognitive beliefs affect password selection

“…For example, judgments of learning and restudy decisions are affected by the belief that font size affects memory (Luna et al, ; Rhodes & Castel, ). Beliefs have been recently advocated to account for several phenomena, such as the effect of animacy (Li, Jia, Li, & Li, ), linguistic frequency (Jia et al, ), or concreteness (Witherby & Tauber, ) on judgments of learning, and have become a very popular explanation for metacognitive judgments.…”