Confidence level and feeling of knowing in question answering: The weight of inferential processes.

Abstract

What are the sources of metamemory judgments in question answering? Experiment 1 showed that the level of confidence in the correctness of a recalled answer (CL) is a reliable measure (test-retest G = .87) and a valid predictor of recognition (G = .55/.58). In contrast, the feeling of knowing the correct answer (FOK), although reliable (G = .82), is a poor predictor of recognition (G = .11). In Experiment 2 it was discovered that FOK levels are more highly correlated with beliefs about what should be known than are CL judgments. Controlling for the relationship between FOK and those beliefs eliminates any correlation between FOK and recognition (G drops from .27 to .08), which is not the case with CL (G remains as high as .52). These data suggest that CL is based on the retrieval of at least some elements of the right answer, whereas FOK may be derived from recency or familiarity effects elicited by the question itself.