The study of metacognition can shed light on some fundamental issues about consciousness and its role in behavior. Metacognition research concerns the processes by which people self reflect on their own cognitive and memory processes (monitoring), and how they put their metaknowledge to use in regulating their information processing and behavior (control). Experimental research on metacognition has addressed the following questions: First, what are the bases of metacognitive judgments that people make in monitoring their learning, remembering, and performance? Second, how (...) valid are such judgments and what are the factors that affect the correspondence between subjective and objective indexes of knowing? Third, what are the processes that underlie the accuracy and inaccuracy of metacognitive judgments? Fourth, how does the output of metacognitive monitoring contribute to the strategic regulation of learning and remembering? Finally, how do the metacognitive processes of monitoring and control affect actual performance? Research addressing these questions is reviewed, emphasizing its implication for issues concerning consciousness, in particular, the genesis of subjective experience, the function of self-reflective consciousness, and the cause-and-effect relation between subjective experience and behavior. (shrink)

Perceptual fluency is the subjective experience of ease with which an incoming stimulus is processed. Although perceptual fluency is assessed by speed of processing, it remains unclear how objective speed is related to subjective experiences of fluency. We present evidence that speed at different stages of the perceptual process contributes to perceptual fluency. In an experiment, figure-ground contrast influenced detection of briefly presented words, but not their identification at longer exposure durations. Conversely, font in which the word was written influenced (...) identification, but not detection. Both contrast and font influenced subjective fluency. These findings suggest that speed of processing at different stages condensed into a unified subjective experience of perceptual fluency. (shrink)

The relationship between metacognition and mindreading was investigated by comparing the monitoring of one’s own learning and another person’s learning . Previous studies indicated that in self-paced study judgments of learning for oneself are inversely related to the amount of study time invested in each item. This suggested reliance on the memorizing-effort heuristic that shorter ST is diagnostic of better recall. In this study although an inverse ST–JOL relationship was observed for Self, it was found for Other only when the (...) Other condition followed the Self condition. The results were interpreted in terms of the proposal that the processes underlying experience-based metacognitive judgments are largely unconscious. However, participants can derive insight from observing themselves as they monitor their own learning, and transfer that insight to Other, thus exhibiting a shift from experience-based to theory-based judgments. Although different processes mediate metacognition and mindreading, metacognition can inform mindreading. (shrink)

Perceptual fluency is the subjective experience of ease with which an incoming stimulus is processed. Although perceptual fluency is assessed by speed of processing, it remains unclear how objective speed is related to subjective experiences of fluency. We present evidence that speed at different stages of the perceptual process contributes to perceptual fluency. In an experiment, figure-ground contrast influenced detection of briefly presented words, but not their identification at longer exposure durations. Conversely, font in which the word was written influenced (...) identification, but not detection. Both contrast and font influenced subjective fluency. These findings suggest that speed of processing at different stages condensed into a unified subjective experience of perceptual fluency. (shrink)