Abstract
This chapter deals with the metacognitive realism in children’s confidence judgments of the correctness of their own episodic memory recall. The chapter first provides some observations on metacognition, the realism in metacognition and its measurement. Next, the chapter focuses on some factors that can influence the realism in confidence judgments of the correctness of one’s episodic recall. These factors include the experienced event, the individual’s general level of reported confidence, intermediate events (such as communication with others), the social situation in which memories are reported, the memory question asked (e.g., type of question: open free recall, directed questions, etc.), the measurement scale used, and the analysed aspect of the realism in confidence (e.g., calibration or discrimination). Two studies by the present author and his co-workers are then presented more in detail in order to deepen the analysis of some of the factors envisaged. The last study shows that, given the appropriate conditions (e.g., open free recall), children can, in similarity to adults, show more or less perfect realism in their confidence ratings of their memory reports. The chapter also more generally relates the level of realism in children’s confidence judgments to that of adults’.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Allwood, C. M., Ask, K., & Granhag, P. A. (2005). The cognitive interview: Effects on the realism in witnesses’ confidence in their free recall. Psychology, Crime & Law, 11(2), 183–198.
Allwood, C. M., & Granhag, P. A. (1999). Feelings of confidence and the realism of confidence judgments in everyday life. In P. Juslin & H. Montgomery (Eds.), Judgment and decision making: Neo-Brunswikian and process-tracing approaches (pp. 123–146). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Allwood, C. M., Granhag, P. A., & Johansson, M. (2003). Increased realism in eyewitness confidence judgments: The effect of dyadic collaboration. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 17, 545–561.
Allwood, C. M., Granhag, P. A., & Jonsson A. C. (2006). Child witnesses’ metamemory realism. Scandinavian Journal of Psychology. 47(6), 461–470.
Allwood, C. M., & Johansson, M. (2004). Actor-observer differences in realism in confidence and frequency judgments. Acta Psychologica, 117, 251–274.
Allwood, C. M., Innes-Ker, Å., Homgren, J., & Fredin, G. (2008). Accuracy and realism in confidence in children’s and adults’ event recall in response to free recall and focused questions. Psychology, Crime & Law, 14, 529–547
Allwood, C. M, Jonsson, A. C., & Granhag, P. A. (2005). The effects of source and type of feedback on child witnesses’ meta-memory accuracy. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 19, 331- 344.
Allwood, C. M., Knutsson, J., & Granhag, P. A. (2006). Eyewitness under influence: How feedback affect the realism in confidence. Psychology, Crime & Law,12, 25–38.
Christianson, S.-Å., & Loftus, E. F. (1991). Remembering emotional events: The fate of detailed information. Cognition & Emotion, 5(2), 81–108.
Dirkzwager, A. (1996). Testing with personal probabilities: 11-year-olds can correctly estimate their personal probabilities. Educational and Psychological Measurement, 56, 957–971.
Erev, I., Wallsten, T. S., & Budescu, D. V. (1994). Simultaneous over- and underconfidence: The role of error in judgment processes. Psychological Review, 101, 519–527.
Gigerenzer, G., Hoffrage, U., & Kleinbölting, H. (1991). Probabilistic mental models: A Brunswikian theory of confidence. Psychological Review, 98, 506–528.
Granhag, P. A. (1997). Realism in eyewitness confidence as a function of type of event witnessed and repeated recall. Journal of Applied Psychology, 82, 599–613.
Granhag, P. A., Strömwall, L., & Allwood, C. M. (2000). Effects of reiteration, hindsight bias, and memory on realism in eyewitnesses’ confidence. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 14, 397–420.
Hertwig, R., Gigerenzer, G., & Hoffrage, U. (1997). The reiteration effect in hindsight bias. Psychological Review, 104, 194–202.
Ibabe, I., & Sporer, S. L. (2004). How you ask is what you get: On the influence of question form on accuracy and confidence. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 18(6), 711–726.
Jonsson, A.-C., & Allwood, C. M. (2003). Stability and variability in the realism of confidence judgments over time, content domain, and gender. Personality and Individual Differences, 34, 559–574.
Jost, J. T., Kruglanski, A. W., & Nelson, T. O. (1998). Social metacognition: An expansionist review. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 2, 137–154.
Juslin, P. (1994). The overconfidence phenomenon as a consequence of informal experimenter-guided selection of almanac items. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 57, 226–246.
Juslin, P., Winman, A., & Olsson, H. (2000). Naive empiricism and dogmatism in confidence research: A critical examination of the hard-easy effect. Psychological Review, 107, 384–396.
Klayman, J., Soll, J. B., Gonzáles-Vallejo, C., & Barlas, S. (1999). Overconfidence: It depends on how, what and whom you ask. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 79, 216–247.
Koriat, A. (2007). Metacognition and consciousness. In P.D. Zelazo, M. Moscovitch, & E. Thompson (Eds.), The Cambridge handbook of consciousness (pp. 289–325). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Koriat, A., & Goldsmith, M. (1996). Monitoring and control processes in the strategic regulation of memory accuracy. Psychological Review, 103, 490–517.
Koriat, A., Goldsmith, M., Schneider, W., & Nakash-Dura, M. (2001). The credibility of children’s testimony: Can children control the accuracy of their memory reports? Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 79, 405–437.
Koriat, A., Lichtenstein, S., & Fischhoff, B. (1980). Reasons for confidence. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Learning and Memory, 6, 107–118.
Leippe, M.R. (1980). Effects of integrative memorial and cognitive processes on the correspondence of eyewitness accuracy and confidence. Law and Human Behavior, 4, 261–274.
Leippe, M. R., & Eisenstadt, D. (2007). Eyewitness confidence and the confidence-accuracy relationship in memory for people. In R. C. Lindsay, D. F. Ross, J. Don Read, & M. P. Toglia (Eds.), Handbook of eyewitness psychology, Volume 2, Memory for people (pp. 377–425). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
Lichtenstein, S., Fischhoff, B., & Phillips, L. D. (1982). Calibration of probabilities: The state of the art to 1980. In D. Kahneman, P. Slovic, & A. Tversky (Eds.), Judgments under uncertainty: Heuristics and biases (pp. 306–334). New York: Cambridge University Press.
Marsh, E. J. (2007). Retelling is not the same as recalling: Implications for memory. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 16(1), 16–20.
Newman, R. S., & Wick, P. L. (1987). Effect of age, skill, and performance feedback on children’s judgments of confidence. Journal of Educational Psychology, 79, 115–119.
Nilsson, S.-E. (1998). Children’s decision making under conditions of certainty and risk. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Göteborg University, Sweden.
Roebers, C. M. (2002). Confidence judgments in children’s and adults’ event recall and suggestibility. Developmental Psychology, 38, 1052–1067.
Roebers, C. M. (2007). Favourable and unfavourable conditions for children’s confidence judgments. British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 25, 109–134.
Roebers, C. M., & Howie, P. (2003). Confidence judgments in event recall: Developmental progression in the impact of question format. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 85, 352–371.
Roediger, H. L., & Karpicke, J. D. (2006). The power of testing memory. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 1(3), 181–210.
Sarwar, F., Allwood, C. M., & Innes-Ker, Å. (2010a). Effects of communication with a non-witness on eyewitnesses’ recall correctness and metacognitive realism. Manuscript submitted for publication.
Sarwar, F., Allwood, C. M., & Innes-Ker, Å. (2010b). Effects of repeated recall and discussion on eyewitness’ accuracy and meta-memory realism for different types of forensic information. Unpublished manuscript. Lund University and University of Gothenburg, Sweden.
Schlottmann, A., & Anderson, N. H. (1994). Children’s judgments of expected value. Developmental Psychology, 30, 56–66.
Schwarz, N. (1996). Cognition and communication: Judgmental biases, research methods and the logic of conversation. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Teigen, K. H. (2001). When equal chances = Good chances: Verbal probabilities and the equiprobability effect. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 85, 77–108.
Tunney, R. J., & Shanks, D. R. (2003). Subjective measures of awareness and implicit cognition. Memory & Cognition, 31, 1060–1071.
Weinert, F. E., & Kluwe, R. H. (Eds.). (1997). Metacognition, motivation and understanding. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Yates, J. F. (1994). Subjective probability accuracy analysis. In G. Wright & P. Ayton (Eds.), Subjective probability (pp. 381–410). New York: Wiley.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2010 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Allwood, C.M. (2010). The Realism in Children’s Metacognitive Judgments of Their Episodic Memory Performance. In: Efklides, A., Misailidi, P. (eds) Trends and Prospects in Metacognition Research. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-6546-2_8
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-6546-2_8
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Boston, MA
Print ISBN: 978-1-4419-6545-5
Online ISBN: 978-1-4419-6546-2
eBook Packages: Humanities, Social Sciences and LawEducation (R0)