METACOGNITION
Celine Souchay
Senior Lecturer in Human Memory
[email protected]
Reading list
• Koriat, A. (1993). How do we know that we know ? The accessibility
model of the feeling of knowing. Psychological Review, 100, 609-639.
• Agnew S.K and Morris R.G. The heteregoneity of anosognosia for
memory impairment in Alzheimer’s disease: a review of the literature
and a proposed model, Aging and Mental Health, 2: 7-19, 1998.
• Pannu, J., Kaszniak, A. (2005) Metamemory Experiments in
Neurological Populations: A Review, Neuropsychological Review, vol15,
No.3, 105-129
• Souchay, C. (2007) Metamemory in Alzheimer’s disease, Cortex, 43,
987-1003
Insight and learning
• CAT
• NO INSIGHT
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Insight and learning
• Humans can learn
by insight
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Plan
• 1 Awareness and Metamemory
• 2 Special Populations
• 3 Neuroimagery
Awareness and Metamemory
Anosognosia Babinski (1914)
– Observation of the behavior of several patients
with left-sided paralysis due to right-hemisphere
cerebral damage.
– Patients had no ideas of their paralysis and
never complained
– First use of the word ‘Anosognosia’:
Unawareness of deficit phenomena in patients
suffering from a variety of neurological
impairments
Why is awareness of memory deficits important ?
– Unaware patients lack motivation for treatment,
• fail to implement compensating strategies,
• maintain unrealistic goals for rehabilitation,
• fail to benefit from therapy
Awareness and Metamemory
Awareness of physical disabilities
•
Hemiplegia
–
•
Original description by Babinski (1914).
Anton’s syndrome
-Unawareness of blindness first described by Anton (1899). 56 year-old woman, blind, and unaware of
her disability.
Awareness of Cognitive difficulties
Disorders of Cognition are more subjective
“Everyone complains of his memory, no-one complains of his
judgement.” François Duc de La Rochefoucauld, (1613-1680)
Awareness and Metamemory
Consider two patients at memory clinic:
•
referred by her GP
•
•
her husband insisted that she had a
professional opinion
self-referred to see a community
based screening team
•
joked about her memory not being
as good as it used to be
harangued his GP for a referral for
formal memory assessment.
•
she was confident that she was
scoring well in the formal
assessments of memory
did not joke about his problems, and
complained constantly
•
could give no examples of her
memory difficulties, and denied it
was having any impact on her life
gave detailed vignettes of recent
memory failures, such as failing to
lock up the house
•
he worried throughout examination
that his scores were low
•
•
•
Awareness and Metamemory
• Awareness can be diagnostic
– - e.g. the worried well
– Used to differenciate between Alzheimer’s disease and
Frontotemporal lobe dementia (Souchay et al., 2002)
• Awareness can influence other cognitive difficulties
and rehabilitation
Metamemory used as a tool to measure awareness
of memory abilities (Souchay et al., 2007)
Awareness and Metamemory
Metamemory.
Higher order cognitive processes involved in memory function
and encapsulates beliefs, attitudes, sensations and knowledge about memory
function (Flavell, 1979)
Metamemory
level
MONITORING
CONTROL
Manipulation of an item to
achieve optimum performance
Assessment of the registration
of an item
Memory level
anosognosia
Nelson and Narens (1990)
Awareness and Metamemory
M
O
N
I
T
O
Ease-of-Learning
Judgment
Judgment-ofLearning
Feeling-ofknowing
R
I
Judgment-ofConfidence
N
G
Acquisition
C
O
N
T
R
Selection of
learning Strategies
Retrieval
Modification of
Strategies
Selection of
search strategies
Termination of
search
O
L
Nelson and Narens (1990)
Awareness and Metamemory
Judgement of Learning (JOL) =
Participant’s capacity to predict their recall during learning on each item
Jols can be made immediately after learning of after a delay
Study
Predict Recall
Recall Test
Awareness and Metamemory
Feeling-of-knowing (FOK) =
Participant’s capacity to predict their recognition of a non-recallable item
Episodic task: Cue-target word pairs to learn (Door-Cat)
Semantic task: General knowledge (What is the capital of France?)
No Predict
Recall
Recognition
Recall Test
Recognition
Recall
Awareness and Metamemory
Global prediction =
Participant predict the number of items they think they will recall
Predict Recall
Study
Predict Recall
Recall Test
Predict Recall
Awareness and Metamemory
How to measure accuracy ?
•
•
Absolute:
– Calibration: I say I’ll remember 5/10 items, and I do exactly that: Under and
Overconfidence
Relative
– You remember more of the ones you say you’ll be better at: the numbers do
not matter
– Comparison of performance for correct predictions and incorrect predictions
Judgments (FOK or JOL)
Yes
No
Memory Performance
(Recall or Recognition)
Yes
No
A
B
C
D
Gamma Score = ad-bc/ad+bc
Special Populations
• 1 Aging
• 2 Dementia (Alzheimer’s disease)
Aging
• Life expectancy continues to rise !
QuickTime™ and a
TIFF (Uncompressed) decompressor
are needed to see this picture.
Men aged 65 could
expect to live a further
16.9 years
Women aged 65 could
expect to live a further
19.7 years
Aging
•
•
•
‘collection of changes that render human beings progressively more likely to die.’
‘Progressive functional decline’
‘the incidence of a number of pathologies increases with age’
Aging
Yes, being over 50does have its advantages...
1.
Kidnappers are not very interested in you.
2. In a hostage situation you are likely to be released first.
3. No one expects you to run into a burning building.
4. People no longer view you as a hypochondriac.
5. You can eat dinner at 4 p.m.
6. You have a party and the neighbors don't even realize it.
7. Your eyes won't get much worse.
8. Your investment in health insurance is finally beginning to pay off.
9. Your secrets are safe with your friends because they can't remember them either.
10. Your supply of brain cells is finally down to a manageable size.
11. You can't remember who sent you this.
Aging
• Memory in Aging: only some aspects of memory decline
– Implicit / explicit memory
• Age-related decline in explicit memory tasks (I.e. when asked to encode
and retrieve the information)
– Semantic / episodic memory
• Age-related decline in episodic memory tasks (I.e. when asked to encode
and retrieve new material)
Aging
• Memory in Aging: which explanations?
– Biological explanations
• The Frontal lobe Hypothesis (Souchay et al., 2000)
– Strategy changes
• Older adults less likely to use memory strategies (Craik et al., 1992)
– Speed of processing
• Older adults slower at performing cognitive tasks (Salthouse,
1992)
Aging
• Metamemory monitoring in Aging
Connor, Dunlosky & Hertzog (1997)
Older adults as accurate as young on immediate and
Delayed JOLs
1
0.8
0.6
Young
Old
0.4
0.2
0
Imm JOL
Del JOL
Aging
• Metamemory monitoring in Aging
1
0.8
•
•
Impaired Episodic FOK
Preserved Semantic FOK
0.6
0.4
young
old
0.2
0
-0.2
semantic
episodic
episodic
-0.4
-0.6
•
•
Souchay et al., 2000, 2007
Why does age only affect Episodic FOK?
Does it related to the basis on which the predictions are made?
Aging
Cue-utilization view (Koriat, 1993) Metamemory judgments rely on cues that
have some validity in predicting performance
– Three classes of cues:
• Intrinsic: characteristics of the items
• Extrinsic: characteristics of the task
• Mnemonic: evaluation of how well and item has been learnt and will be
remembered
Intrinsic
Mnemonic
JOL or FOK
Extrinsic
Familiarity with the cue
(Reder, 1987)
Partial information
(Koriat, 1993)
Aging
• FOK and JOL: Same mnemonic cues?
– Literature: FOK and JOL are not correlated (Kelmen et al., 2000; Souchay et
al., 2004)
– Interpretation:FOK and JOL use distinct cues
Intrinsic
Mnemonic
JOL or FOK
Extrinsic
Familiarit with the cue
(Reder, 1987)
Semantic FOK
Partial Information
(Koriat, 1993)
EpisodicFOK
Aging
• How can we explain the age effect on Episodic FOK?
– Older adults fail to recall partial information (Souchay et al., 2007)
Intrinsic
Mnemonic
JOL or FOK
Extrinsic
Familiarit with the cue
(Reder, 1987)
Semantic FOK
Partial Information
(Koriat, 1993)
EpisodicFOK
Aging
• Metamemory Control in Aging
Dunlosky & Connor, 1997
–
–
–
–
Study 60 paired associates (dog-spoon)
Measure study time & JOL
Repeated study and test phases (x3)
Correlations between one trial and next
JOL and study time
Signif diff between age groups in correlations
Regression Analysis: These measures of allocation significantly
reduce variance due to age on memory tasks
Aging
• Metamemory Control in Aging
Souchay et al. (2004): older adults have difficulties adjusting their memory
strategies to the task difficulty
Study time
Rehearsal strategies
6
25
5
20
4
Young
15
Old
10
Repetitions
Study time per word (in scds)
30
Young
3
Old
2
1
5
0
0
7 items
9 items
List of words in the list
11 items
7 items
9 items
List of words on the list
11 items
Aging
• Metamemory Control in Aging
Pro portio n of correct Recal l
Souchay et al. (2004): older adults have difficulties adjusting their memory strategies
to the task difficulty
and this explain their memory difficulties
1
0.9
0.8
0.7
0.6
Olde r participants
You nger p articipants
0.5
0.4
0.3
0.2
0.1
0
7 items
9 items 11 items
Self-paced test
7 items 9 items 11 items
Experime nter-paced test
Dementia
•
Cortical dementias
–
–
–
–
•
Sub-cortical dementias
–
–
–
–
•
Alzheimer’s dementia
Frontotemporal lobe dementia
Semantic dementia
Lewy body dementia
Vascular dementia (Biswanger’s disease)
Parkinson’s dementia
Huntington disease
Steele-Richardson’s disease
Other dementias
–
–
–
–
Brain tumors
Infection (HIV, Prion disease, Herpes)
Alcohol (Korsakoff’psychosis), carbon monoxyde
Cancer
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=pQO3Tq3KQL4
Dementia
• Alzheimer’s disase is the Most common cause of dementia:
– 15% of the general population over the age of 65
• AD is progressive.
– Early stage : depression + cognitive decline
– Intermediate stage : irritability, anxiety + deterioration of speech
– Advanced stage : even simple responses are difficult
•
•
Characteristics of the disease
– Neurofibrillary tangles, Amyloide plaques,
Neuron loss
Typical distribution
– Medial temporal lobe structures: Enthorinal
cortex, amygdala, hippocampus
– Inferior temporal cortex, posterior parietal
cortex, prefrontal cortex
Dementia
• Metamemory monitoring in Dementia
‘Bei der Unfahikeit, eine situation zu begreifen, great sie jedesmal
in lautes Schrein, sobald man eine Untersuchung and ihr
vornehmen’ (Alois Alzheimer, 1907, p. 5) (‘With her inability to
understand her situation, she bursts into loud screams each time
she is approached to be examined’.)
Dementia
• Metamemory monitoring in Dementia
Alzheimer’s disease: Global predictions
Study
Global predictions
Bar rett et al. (2005)
Moulin et al . (2000)
Moulin et al . (2004)
Ansell e t al. (2005)
Method
Findings
Global prediction for
different tasks: memory,
attention, visuo -spatial
Global prediction p reand
post-study
the
learning of a list of
words
Global prediction p reand post-study learning
of 4 lists of dif
ferent
words
Global prediction p reand post-study learning
of 3 lists of dif
ferent
words
Inaccuracy for memory and visuo spatial tasks
Overall inaccuracy but improve
accuracy for post predictions
Overall inaccuracy
accuracy across lists
but
improve
Overall inaccuracy but improve
accuracy from pre-study diction to
post-study diction and over the 3 lists
Dementia
• Metamemory monitoring in Dementia
-Overestimation when prediction made before and after the task
-BUT AD patients able to monitor their memory performance by changing their
predictions after having experienced the task (Ansell & Bucks, 2005; Moulin et al.,
2000, 2002)
AD patients can perceive, estimate and respond to a memory failure
They have unrealistic expectations about their memory abilities but can
reflect on them
Dementia
• Metamemory monitoring in Dementia
Alzheimer’s disease: Item by item judgments
Study
Item-by-item judgments
Bac kman et al (1993)
Lipinska et al. (1996)
Pappas et al., (1993)
Method
Findings
Semantic FOK
Semantic JOC
Semantic FOK: dated
Versus
contempo rary
information
Accurate FOK
Accurate JOC
Accurate FOK
AD Gammas: .31 (dated
information); .5 5 (contemporar y
information) Control G ammas: .40
(dated info rmation); .45
(contempo rary info rmation)
Non accurate FOK
Accurate JOC
Accurate JOC
Non accurate FOK
AD Gammas: -.12
Control Gammas: .33
No dif ferences between group on
JOL
AD Gammas: .14 Gam ma accuracy
scores for patients not diff erent from
zero suggesting a difficulty to predic t
memory performance
Control Gammas: .54
Accurate JOC
AD Gammas: .58
Control Gammas: .64
Souchay et al., (2002)
Semantic FOK
Semantic JOC
Episodic JOC
Episodic FOK
Moulin et al ., (2000a)
JOL
Moulin et al . (2003)
Episodic JOC
Dementia
• Metamemory monitoring in Dementia
-AD patients more impaired on certain judgments (Episodic FOK)
-Impairment due to a lack of partial information related to retrieval impairments in
AD (Adam et al., 2005)
FOK deficit in AD is a continuation of the episodic deficit
Dementia
• Metamemory monitoring in Dementia
Alzheimer’s disease: The sensitivity approach (Moulin et al., 2000)
-Sensitivity approach: Shift in prediction related to the task or material indicates
correct use ‘online’ of general knowledge regarding memory function
-AD patients make higher predictions in a recognition task compared to a recall
task (Moulin et al., 2002), reduced their predictions for delayed tasks (McGlynn &
Kaszniak, 1991), predict increasing performance with repeated learning (Duke et
al., 2002)
AD patients capable of monitoring factors at encoding that
influence remembering
Dementia
• Metamemory control in Dementia
AD patients able to monitor their study time at encoding
-AD patients spend longer studying difficult items (Moulin, et al., 2000)
-AD patients spend longer studying items presented only once (Moulin, et al., 2000)
Souchay et al. (2008) Rehearsal strategy use in Alzheimer’s disease
Explored AD patients abilities to rehearse
•
Material (Souchay, et al., 2004)
– 32 words such as: ‘Chat’ ‘Arbre’
– 2 lists of 7 words
– 2 lists of 9 words
• Learning conditions (Souchay, et al., 2004)
•Overt rehearsal condition (ORC)
•Control condition (C)
Dementia
Overt rehearsal condition (ORC)
Study
Patients informed about the task
Recall-readiness procedure (Murphy, et al., 1987)
Patients said when they had finished learning
Measures:
Overt rehearsal procedure (Rundus & Atkinson, 1970)
Total
study time per list
Patients asked to rehearse each word aloud in addition
to other words previously presented.
Rehearsal measures
Prediction
Free recall
How many words will you recall ?
Dementia
Overt rehearsal condition (ORC)
At study, for each word, measure of the number of rehearsals
Total rehearsal (TR): number of items rehearsed
Different Rehearsal (DR): number of different items rehearsed
Example for item number 4 in the list
Rehearsal set ‘item 4, item 4, item 4, item 4, item 2, item 2, item 3, item 4’
TR= 8
DR= 3
Dementia
• Metamemory control in Dementia
9
8
7
6
Young
Old
AD
5
4
3
2
1
0
TR7
TR9
DR7
DR9
ST7
ST9
Memory strategies
Figure 1. Mean performance for memory strategies (TR: Total Rehearsal (number of
items), DR: Diff erent Rehearsal (number of items), ST: Study tim e (seconds)) for the
three groups and the different li st-length (7 and 9 items).
In sum: AD patients rehearse less BUT spend more time
studying the items
Dementia
In sum: when given the choice between studying the items for longer or
rehearsing more,
• Young adults concentrate on rehearsing
• Older adults and AD patients to a greater extent choose to spend more time
studying the items
How can we explain these differences ?
Dementia
• The Memory deficit hypothesis
– AD patients fail to rehearse because they have forgotten the previous item
(accelerated forgetting, Larrabee, et al., 1993)
• The Executive deficit hypothesis
– Strategies and Rehearsal involves executive functions (Souchay, et al., 2004)
– ANCOVA analysis confirmed this hypothesis: Rehearsal deficits explained by
executives deficits
• The Self-initiation deficit hypothesis
– AD patients fail to initiate memory strategies (hypothesis in Aging, Craik, 1986)
– Is this lack of-self initiation an impairment when in AD repetition does not
massively improve their memory performance ?
AD patients update their knowledge regarding their memory
functioning and efficiency of memory strategies (Souchay, 2007)
Neuroimaging studies
Neuroimaging studies
Neuroimaging pinpoints frontal lobes as being responsible for
metacognition
Kikyo, Ohki, & Miyashita
(2002) Neural correlates
for feeling-of-knowing: An
fMRl parametric analysis.
NEURON, 36 (1): 177-186
online
Neuroimaging studies
• Frontal lobes activation
– Episodic and semantic FOK (Kikyo et al., 2002; Kikyo & Miyashita,
2004; Maril et al., 2003; Schnyer et al., 2005)
• Temporal lobes activation
– Patients studies suggest that the temporal lobes are not involved in
metamemory (Janowksy et al., 1989)
– FOK (Kikyo & Miyashita, 2005; Schnyer et al., 2005)
Network of brain regions including the mediotemporal lobe
and the prefrontal regions: the fronto-temporal route (Conway,
2005)
Conclusions
Conclusions
Disorders & Diagnosis
• Brain damage commonly includes lack of awareness
• Neurological conditions are often confounded by a
lack of awareness
• Lack of awareness can be indicative of frontal
damage
Conclusions
• Cognition involves ‘higher order’ thought processes,
expectations and sensations
• In order for proficient cognitive function it is
necessary to have awareness or insight.
• Awareness and insight facilitates control of cognitive
processes
monitoring
(awareness)
(appropriate)
control
proficiency