Comparing objective and subjective learning curves: judgments of learning exhibit increased underconfidence with practice.
When participants studied a list of paired associates for several study-test cycles, their judgments of learning (JOLs) exhibited relatively good calibration on the 1st cycle, with a slight overconfidence. However, a shift toward marked underconfidence occurred from the 2nd cycle on. This underconfidence-with-practice (UWP) effect was very robust across several experimental manipulations, such as feedback or no feedback regarding the correctness of the answer, self-paced versus fixed-rate presentation, different incentives for correct performance, magnitude and direction of associative relationships, and conditions producing different degrees of knowing. It was also observed both in item-by-item JOLs and in aggregate JOLs. The UWP effect also occurred for list learning and for the memory of action events. Several theoretical explanations for this counterintuitive effect are discussed.
Koriat
Asher
A
Institute of Information Processing and Decision Making, University of Haifa, Israel. akoriat@research.haifa.ac.il
Sheffer
Limor
L
Ma'ayan
Hilit
H
D000328:Adult; D005246:Feedback; D006801:Humans; D007600:Judgment; D007858:Learning; D008568:Memory; D011939:Mental Recall; D011897:Random Allocation; D012649:Self Concept