Age, Metamory, & Skill Acquisition

Research examining age differences in metamemory has consistently found that the ability to monitor one's memory remains relatively intact as we age. Recently, researchers have been striving to understand the relationship between monitoring and control during encoding and retrieval in an effort to find ways of increasing the efficiency of learning. The current study explores the impact of monitoring on performance for both younger and older adults in an everyday technology-driven task. Participants learned 20 tasks in Quicken and made judgments of learning (JOLs) about their ability to recall a 3-4 step task on a test immediately following training. The timing (immediate vs. delayed) and inclusion of the JOL into the training session varied across the 3 conditions. Results suggest that the incorporation of JOLs into the training of these tasks improved recall performance for both younger and older adults. Timing of the JOL cue did not impact monitoring accuracy in younger adults, but delayed JOLs improved monitoring accuracy in older adults.