Previous research developed a rigorous methodology for investigating particular components of the self-monitoring and self-control of one's own memory. Also a theoretical framework was developed to integrate the above metacognitive components into an overall structure. The framework emphasizes the roles of the monitoring and control processes that occur during the acquisition and retrieval of information in human memory. Included among the monitoring processes are: (1) judgments of learning (made during and at the end of acquisition), (2) retrospective confidence (judgments about the accuracy of one's recent retrieval), and (3) feeling-of-knowing judgments (predictions of subsequent memory performance on currently nonrecallable items). Included among the control processes are: (4) the allocation of self-paced study time (with emphasis on the termination of study for each item) and (5) choice-of-processing judgments (decisions about which kind of memory strategy to employ while learning a given item). I am now proposing a long-term programmatic investigation on metacognition and its linkages to traditional memory processes. A major thrust of the new research will be to expand on recent discoveries that allow for an extraordinary manipulation of an individual's accuracy at memory monitoring during learning. The proposed research is also designed to extend the earlier research to other domains related to metacognition. These include examinations of the psychophysiological (e.g., event-related potentials), neuropsychological, developmental, methodological, and theoretical aspects of metacognition. The major goal of the proposed research is to establish an integrative theoretical formulation of (a) monitoring and control processes, (b) their interactions with each other, and (c) how they affect other memory processing to produce an overall system for self-directed, learning and memory. The development and integration of research findings from the aforementioned aspects of metacognition will be facilitated by extensive collaboration with experts in each of those areas, so as to have a synergistic relationship between the research on the various aspects and to produce a synthesis of those parts into a coherent whole.
