Metacognition and Learning
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Summary
This study investigates the "reactivity" of confidence ratings (CR)—the extent to which eliciting metacognitive judgments alters underlying cognitive performance—specifically within an older adult population. While CR are widely used to assess metacognition, researchers have increasingly questioned whether the act of rating confidence inadvertently changes how participants approach tasks. The authors address the gap in understanding the specific metacognitive pathways (monitoring and control) through which CR affect performance in older individuals, who may be particularly susceptible to such reactivity due to age-related changes in self-regulation. The researchers employed a between-subjects experimental design with 89 community-dwelling older adults (mean age 64.18). Participants performed a timed Latin Square Task, a reasoning measure of fluid intelligence, under one of two conditions: providing confidence ratings after each item (CR group) or viewing a blank screen (Control group). Before the task, participants provided a prospective confidence estimate; after completion, they provided a retrospective appraisal of their performance. The study analyzed overall accuracy, mean accuracy (items correct per item attempted), response times, and calibration (the discrepancy between retrospective appraisal and actual performance). The analysis utilized linear regression models to examine the effects of experimental group, prospective confidence, and their interaction. The results demonstrated that eliciting confidence ratings significantly impacted both metacognitive monitoring and control strategies, moderated by participants’ initial prospective confidence. Regarding monitoring, the CR group exhibited significantly poorer calibration than the control group, indicating less accurate retrospective self-appraisals. Further analysis revealed that CR participants based their retrospective judgments more heavily on their initial prospective confidence beliefs rather than on actual task performance cues. Regarding control and performance, CR had no effect on overall accuracy but significantly affected mean accuracy and response times. Participants with high prospective confidence who provided CR spent more time on individual items and achieved higher mean accuracy, adopting a persistence-oriented strategy. Conversely, those with low prospective confidence responded more quickly and achieved lower mean accuracy, suggesting a disengagement strategy. The findings challenge the assumption that confidence ratings are unobtrusive measures of metacognition. The authors propose a two-stage model of reactivity: CR direct attention toward information-based cues (pre-existing self-beliefs) rather than experience-based task cues, which subsequently drives strategic control decisions. For older adults, this means CR can reinforce existing confidence beliefs, leading high-confidence individuals to persist longer and low-confidence individuals to disengage. Consequently, the study suggests that using confidence ratings as an intervention to improve metacognitive monitoring in older populations may be ineffective or counterproductive, as it can bias self-assessment and alter performance strategies in ways that do not necessarily enhance overall learning or accuracy.
Provenance
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| Stage | Outcome | Tool | Model | Prompt | Attempts | Completed |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| discover | success | OpenAlex-citations | — | — | 1 | 2026-06-17 |
| archive | success | unpaywall | — | — | 2 | 2026-06-25 |
| extract | success | cached | — | — | 2 | 2026-06-25 |
| clean | success | clean | — | — | 1 | 2026-06-18 |
| chunk | success | chunk | — | — | 1 | 2026-06-18 |
| embed | success | embed | Qwen/Qwen3-Embedding-8B | — | 1 | 2026-06-18 |
| promote | success | — | — | — | 1 | 2026-06-17 |
| summarize | success | llm | qwen3.6-27b-prismaquant | summ-v5 | 1 | 2026-06-25 |
| tag | success | vector_similarity | — | — | 6 | 2026-06-18 |
| verify | success | — | — | — | 1 | 2026-06-26 |
Summary generated by qwen3.6-27b-prismaquant on 2026-06-25; verification: verified.
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