The feeling of knowing: Some metatheoretical implications for consciousness and control

The study of the feeling of knowing may have implications for some of the m etatheoretical issues concerning consciousness and control. Assuming a dist inction between information-based and experience-based metacognitive judgme nts, it is argued that the sheer phenomenological experience of knowing ("n oetic feeling") occupies a unique role in mediating between implicit-automa tic processes, on the one hand, and explicit-controlled processes, on the o ther. Rather than reflecting direct access to memory tracts, noetic feeling s are based on inferential heuristics that operate implicitly and unintenti onally. Once such heuristics give rise to a conscious feeling that feeling can then affect controlled action. Examination of the cues that affect noet ic feelings suggest that not only do these feelings inform controlled actio n, but they are also informed by feedback From the outcome of that action. (C) 2000 Academic Press.