Metamemory: The Metacognitive Process

Abstract Given the huge accumulation of research and the information gained about the various memory processes, researchers have now turned towards investigating how individuals monitor and control these processes and what beliefs and knowledge do people have regarding their own memory. This is what metamemory entails. The influence of judgements about one’s own memory on actual memory performance across different ages and clinical groups, is another arena that is being investigated in metamemory research. The present report is an attempt to briefly outline the basic concepts underlying metamemory; how the concept of metamemory came into existence; the early models explaining the various metamemory processes. The different research approaches

Considered as a part of the broader topic called metacognition (monitoring one’s own cognitive processes), it differs from it in that it involves the knowledge of, monitoring of, and control of one’s own learning and memory processes, whereas, metacognition is an umbrella term that entails the self-knowledge about all cognitive processes such as memory, attention, reasoning, decision making, etc. Thus, it follows that all metamemory judgements are essentially metacognitive, but all metacognitive judgements are not metamemory judgements. For example, making judgements about the time to be allotted or required to learn something, the level of confidence about retrieving information from memory, or about the ease with which information can be encoded, general beliefs about one’s own memory functions and capacities all come in the purview of metamemory. Although it is considered to be dependent critically on memory, it is not memory itself. Rather it is the assessments or commentaries that are made about learning and memory. It basically pertains to the self awareness about one’s own memory structures and

This is now being referred to as essentially metacognitive in nature. However, the shift in the way of addressing self-reflective judgements is mostly attributed to the lack of reliability in the findings of the introspectionists. The fact that metamemory can now be studied objectively and reliably is apparent by numerous studies being directed towards issues of human metacognition. Both the processes that underlie the metamemory judgments themselves and the influence that these judgments have on self-directed control of learning are yielding to