title: Beyond the experience: Detection of metamemorial regularities.
abstract: We examined the mechanisms involved in the development of the easily learned, easily remembered (ELER) heuristic in three groups of young children (4-5 years, 6-7 years, and 8-9 years). A trial-to-acquisition procedure was used to evaluate how much these children's judgment of learning depended on the ELER heuristic. Moreover, a new experimental paradigm, composed of six phases-a pretest, four training phases, and a posttest-was employed to implicitly influence the validity of the ELER association that underlies this metacognitive rule. Results revealed that the ELER heuristic develops early (4-5years), but its use is reduced after implicit training. Furthermore, executive monitoring was found to account for the smaller changes observed in older children (8-9 years) after training. From a developmental perspective, these findings present a coherent picture of children's learning of metacognitive heuristics, wherein early automatic and implicit learning is later followed by effortful control.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology: Cognition and Behavior, Neuropsychology Unit, University of Liège, Belgium. Electronic address: mgeurten@ulg.ac.be.
authors.forename: Marie
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Geurten
authors.affiliation: Psychological and Speech Therapy Consultation Center (CPLU), Belgium.
authors.forename: Sylvie
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Willems
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology: Cognition and Behavior, Neuropsychology Unit, University of Liège, Belgium.
authors.forename: Thierry
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Meulemans
mesh_terms: D000367:Age Factors; D002648:Child; D002657:Child Development; D002675:Child, Preschool; D005260:Female; D000066506:Heuristics; D006801:Humans; D007600:Judgment; D007858:Learning; D008297:Male; D000067489:Metacognition
keywords: Children; Heuristics; Implicit learning; Judgment; Metamemory