THE FAILURE OF MEMORY MONITORING IN A FREE-RECALL TASK

Subjects required to predict, at study, which list items they will recall on a subsequent free recall test are able to do so with some degree of accuracy for words, but not for subject-performed tasks (SPTs). In this study, subjects were given an immediate recall test on three lists, followed by a final free recall test. Words recalled on the first test tended to be recalled more often on the final test when the initial prediction ratings had been high (recall expected) rather than low; for SPTs, there was no difference in the final recall frequencies of high- and low-rated initially recalled items. The results are discussed in the context of different types of metamemory failure.