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Poster C in Poster Session C: Wednesday, August 5, 9:30 – 11:15 am, Kimmel Center, Shorin & Rosenthal Rooms

The negative relationship between cognitive ability and metacognitive accuracy is specific to memory domain

Bingqing Chen¹, Xiao Hu¹; ¹Beijing Normal University

Presenter: Bingqing Chen

This study examined whether the relationship between cognitive ability and metacognitive accuracy is domain-general or domain-specific using both meta-analysis and empirical evidence. The meta-analysis revealed an overall negative association between cognitive ability and metacognitive accuracy, with substantial variation across task domains: specifically, the effect was significantly more negative for memory than perceptual tasks. An empirical study confirmed this pattern, showing a robust negative correlation only in memory tasks, with non-significant correlations in perceptual and reasoning tasks. Direct comparisons of correlation coefficients further demonstrated that the negative association was significantly stronger in the memory domain. These findings indicate that the counterintuitive link between higher cognitive ability and lower metacognitive accuracy is specific to memory, rather than a general feature of metacognition.

Topic Area: Memory, Learning & Knowledge Structures