Synonyms
Cognitive awareness; Meta-knowing; Thinking-about-thinking
Short Description or Definition
Metacognition refers to awareness and knowledge of one’s own thoughts and cognitive processes. Metacognition refers also to the ability to monitor, regulate, and control thoughts.
Categorization
Memory process, Neuropsychological process, Metamemory.
Natural History, Prognostic Factors, Outcomes
Historical Background
Metacognition developed out of research from developmental and cognitive psychology on awareness and monitoring of memory, referred to as metamemory (Flavell 1971, 1979). The accuracy of judgments that people make about their memory is what Hart referred to as “feelings of knowing” (Hart 1965, 1967). Developmental psychologists, such as Flavell, have been concerned with discovering if the emerging conscious understanding of the processes of memory and cognition relates to memory improvement in children. From these early studies, interest in metamemory spreads to other areas...
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Cunningham, S., Zhou, Z., Hughes, C., Estrada, J. (2018). Metacognition. In: Kreutzer, J.S., DeLuca, J., Caplan, B. (eds) Encyclopedia of Clinical Neuropsychology. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-57111-9_1464
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