Acute Physical Exercise Can Influence the Accuracy of Metacognitive Judgments

Matthew A Palmer,Ashlee Turner,Peter J Tranent,Glenys A Holt,Laura Brumby,James D Sauer,Kayla Stefanidis,James W Fell,Rachel Breen,Talira Kucina

doi:10.1038/s41598-019-48861-3

Abstract

Acute exercise generally benefits memory but little research has examined how exercise affects metacognition (knowledge of memory performance). We show that a single bout of exercise can influence metacognition in paired-associate learning. Participants completed 30-min of moderate-intensity exercise before or after studying a series of word pairs (cloud-ivory), and completed cued-recall (cloud-?; Experiments 1 & 2) and recognition memory tests (cloud-? spoon; ivory; drill; choir; Experiment 2). Participants made judgments of learning prior to cued-recall tests (JOLs; predicted likelihood of recalling the second word of each pair when shown the first) and feeling-of-knowing judgments prior to recognition tests (FOK; predicted likelihood of recognizing the second word from four alternatives). Compared to no-exercise control conditions, exercise before encoding enhanced cued-recall in Experiment 1 but not Experiment 2 and did not affect recognition. Exercise after encoding did not influence memory. In conditions where exercise did not benefit memory, it increased JOLs and FOK judgments relative to accuracy (Experiments 1 & 2) and impaired the relative accuracy of JOLs (ability to distinguish remembered from non-remembered items; Experiment 2). Acute exercise seems to signal likely remembering; this has implications for understanding the effects of exercise on metacognition, and for incorporating exercise into study routines.

Highlights

We examined whether an acute bout of moderate intensity exercise affects metacognition, the ability to accurately monitor and evaluate one’s knowledge and memory[13,14]
Www.nature.com/scientificreports studying without concern that exercise might warp their ability to gauge their own learning. If it emerges that exercise systematically decreases the accuracy of metacognitive judgments under certain circumstances, by educating people about these effects, we can help people take them into account when evaluating memory decisions
Exercise before studying did not enhance memory performance; mean accuracy was numerically higher for the control condition than the exercise condition for both memory tasks

Summary

Introduction

We examined whether an acute bout of moderate intensity exercise affects metacognition, the ability to accurately monitor and evaluate one’s knowledge and memory[13,14]. Understanding how exercise affects this ability will allow us to consider ways to compensate for any effects and, maximize metacognitive accuracy. Www.nature.com/scientificreports studying without concern that exercise might warp their ability to gauge their own learning If it emerges that exercise systematically decreases the accuracy of metacognitive judgments under certain circumstances, by educating people about these effects, we can help people take them into account when evaluating memory decisions (e.g., by lowering expectations about likely memory accuracy). Absolute accuracy refers to the degree to which metacognitive judgments correspond to actual levels of memory performance This can deviate from perfect in several ways, including overconfidence (whereby the predicted likelihood of remembering is, on average, higher than actual accuracy) and under-confidence (whereby predictions are lower than actual accuracy). These frameworks predict that if exercise enhances memory, it will improve the relative accuracy of metacognitive judgments (i.e., increased discrimination)

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