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On some sources of metacomprehension
Author(s) -
WAERN YVONNE,
ASKWALL SUSANNE
Publication year - 1981
Publication title -
scandinavian journal of psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.743
H-Index - 72
eISSN - 1467-9450
pISSN - 0036-5564
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-9450.1981.tb00373.x
Subject(s) - correctness , statement (logic) , psychology , set (abstract data type) , cognitive psychology , inference , term (time) , task (project management) , metacognition , cognition , computer science , artificial intelligence , linguistics , algorithm , programming language , philosophy , physics , management , quantum mechanics , neuroscience , economics
Metacomprehension is defined as readers' evaluations of their performance on a task, involving inferences derived from a text. In two studies metacomprehension was related to characteristics of the inferences required, in terms of 1) amount of information to be kept in long‐term memory (Study 1), 2) amount of information to be kept in short‐term memory (Study 2) and 3) existence of negatives (Study 2). In the first study, 41 psychology students read a text and afterwards judged 1) the correctness of a set of pragmatic inference statements, and 2) their confidence in being correct or the difficulty of judging each statement. In the second study, 81 high‐school students read a text and simultaneously judged 1) the correctness of a set of logical inference statements and 2) their confidence in being correct and the difficulty of judging each statement. In both studies, metacomprehension was not significantly correlated with actual performance. The results indicate that one important source of metacomprehension consists in information processing load. In Study 1, long‐term memory requirements represent this load, in Study 2, the existence of negatives.