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Explicit and implicit confidence judgments and developmental differences in metamemory: an eye-tracking approach

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Abstract

In the present study, primary school children’s ability to give accurate confidence judgments (CJ) was addressed, with a special focus on uncertainty monitoring. In order to investigate the effects of memory retrieval processes on monitoring judgments, item difficulty in a vocabulary learning task (Japanese symbols) was manipulated. Moreover, as a first exploratory step to uncover fast and retrieval bound (implicit) monitoring processes that take place before explicit CJ are openly reported, fixation time allocation during recognition and monitoring was recorded with an eye-tracking device. Results revealed developmental progression in uncertainty (but not in certainty) monitoring between the age of 7 and 9 years. Differences in CJ across levels of item difficulty point to a substantial impact of retrieval processes on 9-yr-olds’ but not on 7-yr-olds’ monitoring. Eye-tracking data revealed an overall bias towards medium and high CJ, and confirmed evidence on developmental progression in monitoring skills.

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Notes

  1. Other measures of implicit CJ were calculated as well (e.g., the last fixation on a confidence judgment before the explicit judgment was given during recording). These analyses revealed the same or very similar results.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Psychology, University of Bern, Muesmattstr. 45, CH-3000, Bern 9, Switzerland

    Thomas Roderer & Claudia M. Roebers

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  1. Thomas Roderer
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  2. Claudia M. Roebers
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Correspondence to Thomas Roderer.

Additional information

The current study was partially financed by a grant of the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF—Grant No. 100014–112492 to the second author). We wish to thank Francoise Nor for her help with the data collection and the teachers, children, and their parents for their cooperation and participation. Thanks are also due to the Tobii Technology support team for their technical assistance.

Appendix

Appendix

Easy items – learning trial

figure a

Difficult items – learning trial

figure b

Unanswerable items – recognition trial

figure c

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Roderer, T., Roebers, C.M. Explicit and implicit confidence judgments and developmental differences in metamemory: an eye-tracking approach. Metacognition Learning 5, 229–250 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11409-010-9059-z

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