Practice and feedback effects on the confidence-accuracy relation in eyewitness memory

Monitoring and control processes in mock witnesses in under-represented non-WEIRD samples with high or low educational level

A popular model proposes that metamemory is based on two processes, monitoring and control. The first examines memories and evaluates their quality and the second uses that information to decide on the most appropriate course of action. Monitoring and control processes have been studied mostly with university students, which raises the question of how well do they work in groups of people from under-represented samples such as people with a low educational level. In this research, we tested the monitoring and control processes of three groups of participants from a non-WEIRD (Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich and Democratic) country (Colombia). Two groups of adults (aged 30-55 years) living in urban or rural areas and with a low educational level and a group of Colombian university students watched a bank robbery video and answered cued recall questions. To measure monitoring ability, participants rated their confidence that they had produced the correct answer, and to measure control they indicated whether they preferred to report or withhold the response were they in a trial. Results showed that the three groups had a functional ability to monitor their memories and control their behaviour, and that university students had better memory and metamemory than the two low education groups. The results support the concept that the basic metamemory processes of monitoring and control are functional in different groups of individuals, but the differences between groups highlight the need to test the generalizability of cognitive processes and phenomena across individuals.

Knowing your heart and your mind: The relationships between metamemory and interoception

Humans experience a unified self that integrates our mental lives and physical bodies, but many studies focus on isolated domains of self-knowledge. We tested the hypothesis that knowledge of one's mind and body are related by examining metamemory and interoception. We evaluated two dimensions of metamemory and interoception: subjective beliefs and the accuracy of those beliefs compared to objective criteria. We first demonstrated, in two studies, that metamemory beliefs were positively correlated with interoceptive beliefs, and this was not due to domain-general confidence. Finally, we showed that individuals with better metamemory accuracy also had better interoceptive accuracy. Taken together, these findings suggest a common mechanism subserving knowledge of our cognitive and bodily states.

Distinguishing highly confident accurate and inaccurate memory: insights about relevant and irrelevant influences on memory confidence

It is generally believed that accuracy and confidence in one's memory are related, but there are many instances when they diverge. Accordingly it is important to disentangle the factors that contribute to memory accuracy and confidence, especially those factors that contribute to confidence, but not accuracy. We used eye movements to separately measure fluent cue processing, the target recognition experience, and relative evidence assessment on recognition confidence and accuracy. Eye movements were monitored during a face-scene associative recognition task, in which participants first saw a scene cue, followed by a forced-choice recognition test for the associated face, with confidence ratings. Eye movement indices of the target recognition experience were largely indicative of accuracy, and showed a relationship to confidence for accurate decisions. In contrast, eye movements during the scene cue raised the possibility that more fluent cue processing was related to higher confidence for both accurate and inaccurate recognition decisions. In a second experiment we manipulated cue familiarity, and therefore cue fluency. Participants showed higher confidence for cue-target associations for when the cue was more familiar, especially for incorrect responses. These results suggest that over-reliance on cue familiarity and under-reliance on the target recognition experience may lead to erroneous confidence.

Remembering is in the details: Effects of test-list context on memory for an event

We examined how recognition judgements for a set of event details are influenced by the relative difficulty of the other details included on the test. Participants viewed a crime event and then assigned remember/know judgements to details on a recognition test. In Experiment 1, details of medium difficulty were more likely to be classified as remembered when mixed with hard details rather than easy details. Similarly, in Experiment 2, medium details presented in blocked format were more likely to be classified as remembered when preceded by a block of hard details rather than a block of easy details. The test-list context thus appears to influence how participants define remembering. In Experiment 3, informing participants of the relative difficulty of the upcoming block of details eliminated the blocking effect. Implications for accounts of remember/know judgements and for conducting memory interviews are discussed.

Dissociating Confidence and Accuracy: Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Shows Origins of the Subjective Memory Experience

Successful memory typically implies both objective accuracy and subjective confidence, but there are instances when confidence and accuracy diverge. This dissociation suggests that there may be distinct neural patterns of activation related to confidence and accuracy. We used event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging to study the encoding of novel face–name associations, assessed with a postscan memory test that included objective measures of accuracy and subjective measures of confidence. We showed specific neural activity in the left inferior prefrontal cortex associated with trials when subjects expressed high confidence that they had chosen the correct name for the face and made a correct identification. Moreover, we found that this region was also associated with imparting high confidence when subjects chose the incorrect name. However, medial temporal lobe regions showed activity only for high-confidence correct trials. Many functional magnetic resonance imaging studies have shown that the medial temporal lobe and left prefrontal regions are particularly important for the successful formation of memories by using a combination of subjective and objective measures. Our findings suggest that these regions may be differentially involved in the objective and subjective components of memory and that the origins of confidence–accuracy dissociations may be related to incomplete activation of the neural pattern seen in successful encoding. These findings may also aid understanding of eyewitness misidentifications and memory distortions.

Confidence judgments in children's and adults' event recall and suggestibility

The present work investigated the role of children's and adults' metacognitive monitoring and control processes for unbiased event recall tasks and for suggestibility. Three studies were conducted in which children and adults indicated their degree of confidence that their answers were correct after (Study 1) and before (Study 2) answering either unbiased or misleading questions or (Study 3) forced-choice recognition questions. There was a strong tendency for overestimation of confidence regardless of age and question format. However, children did not lack the principal metacognitive competencies when these questions were asked in a neutral interview. Under misleading questioning, in contrast, children's monitoring skills were seriously impaired. Within each age group, better metacognitive differentiation was positively associated with recall accuracy in the suggestive interview.