Metamemory cues and monitoring accuracy: Judging what you know and what you will know

Three experiments examined metamemory for categorized lists of items. Judgm ents of learning (JOLs) were obtained from college students either immediat ely after study or following a brief (at least 30-s) delay. In contrast to past findings (e.g., T.O. Nelson & J. Dunlosky, 1991), no advantage was fou nd for delayed JOLs in Experiment I, using a standard, prediction-based met amemory cue. In Experiment 2, knowledge-based judgments were elicited, and delayed JOL accuracy improved significantly. The relative efficacy of 4 dif ferent metamemory cues was examined in Experiment 3. An interaction between the timing and phrasing of JOL cues was detected: Delayed JOLs were more a ccurate than immediate JOLs only when knowledge-based cues were used. These results are interpreted in A. Koriat's (1997) cue-utilization framework fo r JOL accuracy, and they show that the phrasing of metamemory cues can have a substantial impact on monitoring accuracy.