Abstract
Many of our cognitive and metacognitive judgments are based on sheer subjective experience. Subjective experience, however, may be contaminated by irrelevant factors, resulting in biased judgments. Under certain conditions people exert a metacognitive correction process to remedy such biased judgments. In this study we examine the proposition that even after a judgment has been corrected to avoid the biasing effects on subjective experience, subjective experience itself remains biased. We asked participants to judge the difficulty of anagrams for others. When they were aware of having been exposed to the solutions of some of the anagrams, they corrected their difficulty judgments for these anagrams. Despite this correction, their speeded choices in a subsequent task disclosed their biased subjective experience that these anagrams were easier to solve. Implications for the study of metacognition and for the educational domain are discussed.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
Practically the same pattern of results was found when all responses (i.e., those in the range 250–3000 ms) were included in the analysis.
Hereafter we would use the term ‘Anagram Type’ as shorthand for the term ‘Type of Target Anagram’.
References
Bargh, J. A. (1994). The four horsemen of automaticity: Awareness, intention, efficiency, and control in social cognition. In R. S. Jr Wyer, & T. K. Srull (Eds.), Handbook of social cognition (pp. 1–40). Hillsdale, NJ, England: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Barsalou, L. W., Niedenthal, P. M., Barbey, A., & Ruppert, J. (2003). Social embodiment. In B. Ross (Ed.), The psychology of learning and motivation (Vol. 43 (pp. 43–92). San Diego, CA: Academic Press.
Begg, I. M., Anas, A., & Farinacci, S. (1992). Dissociation of processes in belief: Source recollection, statement familiarity, and the illusion of truth. Journal of Experimental Psychology. General, 121, 446–458. doi:10.1037/0096-3445.121.4.446.
Benjamin, A. S., & Bjork, R. A. (1996). Retrieval fluency as a metacognitive index. In L. Reder (Ed.), Implicit memory and metacognition (pp. 309–338). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Benjamin, A. S., Bjork, R. A., & Schwartz, B. L. (1998). The mismeasure of memory: When retrieval fluency is misleading as a metamnemonic index. Journal of Experimental Psychology. General, 127, 55–68. doi:10.1037/0096-3445.127.1.55.
Bless, H., & Forgas, J. P. (2000). The message within: Toward a social psychology of subjective experiences. In H. Bless, & J. P. Forgas (Eds.), The message within: The role of subjective experience in social cognition and behavior (pp. 372–392). Lillington, North Carolina: Edwards Brothers.
Finucane, M. L., Alhakami, A., Slovic, P., & Johnson, S. M. (2000). The affect heuristic in judgments of risks and benefits. Journal of Behavioral Decision Making, 13, 1–17. doi:10.1002/(SICI)1099-0771(200001/03)13:1>1::AID-BDM333<3.0.CO;2-S.
Fodor, J. A. (1983). The modularity of mind: An essay on faculty psychology. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Greenwald, A. G., McGhee, D. E., & Schwartz, J. K. L. (1998). Measuring individual differences in implicit cognition: The implicit association test. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 74, 1464–1480. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.74.6.1464.
Haidt, J. (2001). The emotional dog and its rational tail: A social intuitionist approach to moral judgment. Psychological Bulletin, 108, 814–834.
Jacoby, L. L., Allan, L. G., Collins, J. C., & Larwill, L. K. (1988). Memory influences subjective experience: Noise judgments. Journal of Experimental Psychology. Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 14, 240–247. doi:10.1037/0278-7393.14.2.240.
Jacoby, L. L., & Dallas, M. (1981). On the relationship between autobiographical memory and perceptual learning. Journal of Experimental Psychology. General, 110, 306–340. doi:10.1037/0096-3445.110.3.306.
Jacoby, L. L., Kelley, C. M., Brown, J., & Jasechko, J. (1989a). Becoming famous overnight: Limits on the ability to avoid unconscious influences of the past. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 56, 326–338. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.56.3.326.
Jacoby, L. L., Kelley, C. M., & Dywan, J. (1989b). Memory attributions. In H. L. Roediger, & F. I. M. Craik (Eds.), Varieties of memory and consciousness: Essays in honour of Endel Tulving (pp. 391–422). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Jacoby, L. L., Lindsay, D. S., & Toth, J. P. (1992). Unconscious influences revealed: Attention, awareness, and control. American Psychologist, 47, 802–809.
Jacoby, L. L., & Whitehouse, K. (1989). An illusion of memory: False recognition influenced by unconscious perception. Journal of Experimental Psychology. General, 118, 126–135. doi:10.1037/0096-3445.118.2.126.
Jones, T. C., & Jacoby, L. L. (2001). Feature and conjunction errors in recognition memory: Evidence for dual-process theory. Journal of Memory and Language, 45, 82–102. doi:10.1006/jmla.2000.2761.
Kelley, C. M. (1999). Subjective experience as basis of “objective” judgments: Effects of past experience on judgments of difficulty. In D. Gopher, & A. Koriat (Eds.), Attention and performance XVII: Cognitive regulation of performance: Interaction of theory and application (pp. 515–536). Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.
Kelley, C. M., & Jacoby, L. L. (1996). Adult egocentrism: Subjective experience versus analytic bases for judgment. Journal of Memory and Language, 35, 157–175. doi:10.1006/jmla.1996.0009.
Kelley, C. M., & Lindsay, D. S. (1993). Remembering mistaken for knowing: Ease of retrieval as a basis for confidence in answers to general knowledge questions. Journal of Memory and Language, 32, 1–24. doi:10.1006/jmla.1993.1001.
Koriat, A. (1998). Metamemory: The feeling of knowing and its vagaries. In M. Sabourin, F. Craik, & M. Robert (Eds.), Advances in psychological science (Vol. 2 (pp. 461–469). Hove, England: Psychology Press.
Koriat, A. (2000). The feeling of knowing: Some metatheoretical implications for consciousness and control. Consciousness and Cognition, 9, 149–171. doi:10.1006/ccog.2000.0433.
Koriat, A. (2007). Metacognition and consciousness. In P. D. Zelazo, M. Moscovitch, & E. Thompson (Eds.), The Cambridge handbook of consciousness (pp. 289–325). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Koriat, A., & Bjork, R. A. (2005). Illusions of competence in monitoring one’s knowledge during study. Journal of Experimental Psychology. Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 31, 187–194. doi:10.1037/0278-7393.31.2.187.
Koriat, A., & Bjork, R. A. (2006). Mending metacognitive illusions: A comparison of mnemonic-based and theory-based procedures. Journal of Experimental Psychology. Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 32, 1133–1145. doi:10.1037/0278-7393.32.5.1133.
Koriat, A., & Levy-Sadot, R. (1999). Processes underlying metacognitive judgments: Information-based and experience-based monitoring of one’s own knowledge. In S. Chaiken, & Y. Trope (Eds.), Dual-process theories in social psychology (pp. 483–502). New York, NY: Guilford Press.
Koriat, A., & Ma’ayan, H. (2005). The effects of encoding fluency and retrieval fluency on judgments of learning. Journal of Memory and Language, 52, 478–492. doi:10.1016/j.jml.2005.01.001.
Koriat, A., Ma’ayan, H., & Nussinson, R. (2006). The intricate relationships between monitoring and control in metacognition: Lessons for the cause-and-effect relation between subjective experience and behavior. Journal of Experimental Psychology. General, 135, 36–69. doi:10.1037/0096-3445.135.1.36.
Koriat, A., Nussinson, R., Bless, H., & Shaked, N. (2008). Information-based and experience-based metacognitive judgments: Evidence from subjective confidence. In J. Dunlosky, & R. A. Bjork (Eds.), A handbook of memory and metamemory (pp. 117–136). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Lazarus, R. S., & Lazarus, B. N. (1994). Passion and reason: Making sense of our emotions. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
Lindsay, D. S., & Kelley, C. M. (1996). Creating illusions of familiarity in a cued recall remember/know paradigm. Journal of Memory and Language, 35, 197–211.
Logan, G. D., & Cowan, W. B. (1984). On the ability to inhibit thought and action: A theory of an act of control. Psychological Review, 91, 295–327. doi:10.1037/0033-295X.91.3.295.
Marcel, A. J. (1993). Slippage in the unity of consciousness. In J. Wiley (Ed.), Experimental and theoretical studies of consciousness (pp. 168–186). Chichester, England: John Wiley & Sons.
Monahan, J. L., Murphy, S. T., & Zajonc, R. B. (2000). Subliminal mere exposure: Specific, general and diffuse effects. Psychological Science, 11, 462–466. doi:10.1111/1467-9280.00289.
Reber, R., Schwarz, N., & Winkielman, P. (2004a). Processing fluency and aesthetic pleasure: Is beauty in the perceiver’s processing experience? Personality and Social Psychology Review, 8, 364–382. doi:10.1207/s15327957pspr0804_3.
Reber, R., Zimmermann, T. D., & Wurtz, P. (2004b). Judgments of duration, figure-ground contrast, and size for words and nonwords. Perception & Psychophysics, 66, 1105–1114.
Rhodes, M. G., & Jacoby, L. L. (2007). Toward analyzing cognitive illusions: Past, present, and future. In J. S. Nairne (Ed.), The foundations of remembering: Essays in honor of Henry L. Roediger, III (pp. 379–393). New York, NY: Psychology Press.
Schwarz, N., Bless, H., Strack, F., Klumpp, G., Rittenauer-Schatka, H., & Simons, A. (1991). Ease of retrieval as information: Another look at the availability heuristic. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 61, 195–202. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.61.2.195.
Schwarz, N., & Clore, G. L. (1983). Mood, misattribution, and judgments of well-being: Informative and directive functions of affective states. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 45, 513–523. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.45.3.513.
Schwarz, N., & Clore, G. L. (1996). Feelings and phenomenal experiences. In E. T. Higgins, & A. W. Kruglanski (Eds.), Social psychology: Handbook of basic principles (pp. 433–465). New York, NY: Guilford Press.
Slovic, P., Finucane, M., Peters, E., & MacGregor, D. G. (2002). The affect heuristic. In T. Gilovich, D. Griffin, & D. Kahnemann (Eds.), Heuristics and biases: The psychology of intuitive judgment (pp. 397–420). New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.
Stepper, S., & Strack, F. (1993). Proprioceptive determinants of emotional and nonemotional feelings. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 64, 211–220. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.64.2.211.
Strack, F. (1992). The different routes to social judgments: Experiential versus informational strategies. In L. L. Martin, & A. Tesser (Eds.), The construction of social judgments (pp. 249–275). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Strack, F., & Deutsch, R. (2004). Reflective and impulsive determinants of social behavior. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 8, 220–247. doi:10.1207/s15327957pspr0803_1.
Strack, F., & Hannover, B. (1996). Awareness of influence as a precondition for implementing correctional goals. In P. M. Gollwitzer, & J. A. Bargh (Eds.), The Psychology of action: Linking cognition and motivation to behavior (pp. 579–596). New York, NY: Guilford Press.
Thorndike, E. L., & Lorge, I. (1944). The teachers’ word book of 30,000 words. New York, NY: Columbia University Press.
Wänke, M., Schwarz, N., & Bless, H. (1995). The availability heuristic revisited: Experienced ease of retrieval in mundane frequency estimates. Acta Psychologica, 89, 83–90. doi:10.1016/0001-6918(93)E0072-A.
Wegener, D., & Petty, R. (1995). Flexible correction processes in social judgment: The role of naive theories in corrections for perceived bias. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 68, 36–51. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.68.1.36.
Whittlesea, B. W. A. (1993). Illusions of familiarity. Journal of Experimental Psychology. Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 19, 1235–1253. doi:10.1037/0278-7393.19.6.1235.
Whittlesea, B. W. A. (1997). Production, evaluation and preservation of experiences: Constructive processing in remembering and performance tasks. In D. L. Medin (Ed.), The psychology of learning and motivation: Advances in research and theory (Vol. 37 (pp. 211–264). San Diego, CA: Academic Press.
Whittlesea, B. W. A. (2002). False memory and the discrepancy-attribution hypothesis: The prototype-familiarity illusion. Journal of Experimental Psychology. General, 131, 96–115. doi:10.1037/0096-3445.131.1.96.
Whittlesea, B. W. A., Jacoby, L. L., & Girard, K. (1990). Illusions of immediate memory: Evidence of an attributional basis for feelings of familiarity and perceptual quality. Journal of Memory and Language, 29, 716–732. doi:10.1016/0749-596X(90)90045-2.
Whittlesea, B. W. A., & Williams, L. S. (1998). Why do strangers feel familiar, but friends don’t? A discrepancy-attribution account of feelings of familiarity. Acta Psychologica, 98, 141–165. doi:10.1016/S0001-6918(97)00040-1.
Whittlesea, B. W. A., & Williams, L. S. (2000). The source of feelings of familiarity: The discrepancy-attribution hypothesis. Journal of Experimental Psychology. Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 26, 547–565. doi:10.1037/0278-7393.26.3.547.
Whittlesea, B. W. A., & Williams, L. S. (2001). The discrepancy-attribution hypothesis: I. The heuristic basis of feelings and familiarity. Journal of Experimental Psychology. Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 27, 3–13. doi:10.1037/0278–7393.27.1.3.
Wilson, T. D., & Brekke, N. (1994). Mental contamination and mental correction: Unwanted influences on judgments and evaluations. Psychological Bulletin, 116, 117–142. doi:10.1037/0033-2909.116.1.117.
Witherspoon, D., & Allan, L. G. (1985). The effect of a prior presentation on temporal judgments in a perceptual identification task. Memory & Cognition, 13, 101–111.
Acknowledgements
This study was conducted at the Institute of Information Processing and Decision Making, University of Haifa, Haifa, Israel. We gratefully acknowledge support for this research by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) within the framework of German-Israeli Project Cooperation (DIP). We thank Limor Sheffer for her help in the analyses of the data.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
Ravit Nussinson has previously published under the name Ravit Levy-Sadot.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Nussinson, R., Koriat, A. Correcting experience-based judgments: the perseverance of subjective experience in the face of the correction of judgment. Metacognition Learning 3, 159–174 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11409-008-9024-2
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11409-008-9024-2