INCREASED PROCESSING ENHANCES CALIBRATION OF COMPREHENSION

Two experiments investigated whether increased processing increases the relation between test performance predictions and test performance, i.e., increases calibration of comprehension. The amount of processing of text was manipulated by having subjects read intact text or text with deleted letters. In Experiment 1, intact versus deleted letters were manipulated within subjects, and subjects made either comprehension ease or test prediction ratings. Paragraphs with deleted letters produced higher correlations between predictions and test performance than did intact paragraphs. Better calibration with more processing was not observed for ratings of comprehension ease. In Experiment 2, in a between-subjects design, the prediction results were replicated; calibration was better for text with deleted letters than for intact text. The results show that subjects can predict performance on text material with greater than chance accuracy and that these predictions are better when subjects do more active processing during reading.