Metacognitive illusions (original) (raw)

2022, Cognitive Illusions

People often reflect on their own learning, memory, and thinking. Imagine, for instance, students who are preparing for an exam. They engage in study activities such as reviewing lecture slides, rereading book chapters, writing summaries, or using flashcards. At the same time, they think about whether they understand the texts they are reading, consider how well they can remember definitions, concepts, and theories, and evaluate whether they have sufficiently learned the material to succeed in the exam. Thus, some of the students' cognitions are cognitive processes about cognitive processes, often termed metacognition (Flavell, 1971; Nelson & Narens, 1990). Metacognition entails two components (Nelson & Narens, 1990). Metacognitive monitoring refers to thoughts, knowledge, and judgments about cognitive processes as well as to assessments of one's own cognitions. Metacognitive control refers to the use of this information for regulating cognition and behavior. In our example, the students engage in metacognitive monitoring when thinking about their understanding and learning, when reflecting on their learning progress, and when assessing their overall level of knowledge. They engage in metacognitive control when utilizing the output of their monitoring processes to self-regulate their learning. A student who feels that he does not progress well might try a different study strategy or take a break, whereas a student who thinks that she has sufficiently mastered the material might stop studying altogether. Decades of research have demonstrated that accurate metacognition is critical for good performance on various cognitive tasks. For instance, a recent meta-analysis showed that accurate metacognition positively predicts academic performance in adults, adolescents, and children even when controlling for intelligence (Ohtani & Hisasaka, 2018). Thus, much can be gained from accurate metacognition. At the same time, there is a real danger that metacognitive illusions undermine cognitive performance. Metacognitive illusions are defined as reliable and systematic dissociations between people's metacognitions and cognitions. Thus, unlike optical or cognitive illusions, illusory metacognitions do not deviate from some external "reality" (see Introduction) but from the cognitions they are supposed to assess. Apart from this difference, however, cognitive and metacognitive illusions share their defining features. In particular, illusory metacognitions occur involuntary, clash with people's conviction that they know their own minds, are difficult to avoid, and have attracted a great deal of interest from researchers and practitioners (e.g.