title: More than just beliefs: Experience and beliefs jointly contribute to volume effects on metacognitive judgments.
abstract: Experience-based cues, such as perceptual fluency, have long been thought to influence metacognitive judgments (Kelley & Jacoby, 1996; Koriat, 1997). Studies found that manipulations of perceptual fluency via changes in font and volume alter Judgments of Learning (JOLs) without influencing memory performance (Rhodes & Castel, 2008, 2009). Nonetheless, recent research (Mueller, Tauber, & Dunlosky, 2013; Mueller, Dunlosky, Tauber, & Rhodes, 2014, 2016) has challenged the notion that experience-based cues such as fluency are the primary basis for item-level JOLs, arguing instead that preexisting beliefs about these manipulations are responsible for these effects. For the first time, we compared global metacognitive judgments to item-level JOLs made during study to independently assess the contribution of beliefs and experience to volume-effects on JOLs. In 3 experiments, we found evidence for strong beliefs about volume-effects on memory, both before and after a study-test phase. However, these beliefs either did not account for the volume effect on JOLs (Experiment 3) or only partially accounted for the volume effect on JOLs (Experiments 1 and 2). Further, in Experiments 2 and 3 global performance estimates (before and after study) did not differ with respect to the volume dose whereas item-level JOLs generally varied with dose strength. Taken together, our findings suggest that both beliefs and experience-based cues contribute independently to the effects of volume on item-level JOLs, but that beliefs alone cannot fully account for the effects of volume on item-level JOLs. (PsycINFO Database Record
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, The University of North Carolina at Greensboro.
authors.forename: David J
authors.initials: DJ
authors.lastname: Frank
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, School of Social Sciences, University of Mannheim.
authors.forename: Beatrice G
authors.identifier: 0000-0002-3235-5717
authors.initials: BG
authors.lastname: Kuhlmann
mesh_terms: D003463:Cues; D003469:Culture; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007600:Judgment / Q000502:physiology*; D007858:Learning / Q000502:physiology*; D008297:Male; D008568:Memory / Q000502:physiology*; D000067489:Metacognition / Q000502:physiology*; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D011237:Predictive Value of Tests; D011897:Random Allocation; D013334:Students; D014495:Universities