Abstract
As well as memory performance, the sensations and experiences that accompany memory retrieval can beinformative regarding changes to memory that occur with aging. One such experience is the Feeling of Knowing(FOK), the sensation that an item which has failed to be recalled is nonetheless stored within the memory system,though temporarily unavailable. Older adults consistently show preserved FOK accuracy for semanticinformation. However, measures of FOK accuracy in episodic memory tasks have yielded inconsistent findings.The present study used a novel language translation paradigm to assess the effect of age on semantic andepisodic FOK judgments, and to examine the impact of repeated learning trials on episodic FOKs. As expected,no age effect was found for semantic FOK judgments. For episodic judgments, older adults’ only were found tohave chance levels of performance: FOK judgments in the older adult group were not predictive of futurememory performance. Repeated learning trials led to comparable improvements in FOK accuracy between thetwo age groups, although older adults remained at chance until after the third learning trial. Results areinterpreted within recent memory and metamemory frameworks.
Highlights
Episodic memory tasks require the acquisition of declarative information during a specified learning session for later reproduction
Feeling of knowing judgments require participants to make a prediction of future memory performance for currently unrecalled items and, despite being unable to retrieve the specific memory at the time of making the judgment, participants are typically accurate at predicting future retrieval (e.g. Hart, 1965; Nelson et al, 1982; Schacter, 1983)
As previously shown in the literature, the results demonstrated no effect of age on semantic Feeling of Knowing (FOK) accuracy (Allen-Burge & Storandt, 2000; Butterfield et al, 1988; Marquié & Huet, 2000; Souchay et al, 2007)
Summary
Episodic memory tasks require the acquisition of declarative information during a specified learning session for later reproduction. The impact of age on the monitoring and control processes that regulate memory performance (termed metacognition; Nelson & Narens 1990, 1994) is less clear. One such monitoring process is the feeling of knowing (FOK & Hart, 1965), the sensation that information currently irretrievable is stored within the memory system and could be later retrieved. The feeling of knowing paradigm can be applied to both semantic (for example general knowledge questions, Nelson et al, 1984) and episodic information (for example word pairs, Schacter, 1983), allowing assessment of metacognition for both memory systems
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