Metamemory for narrative text

Abstract

In this experiment, we investigated metamemory for narrative text passages. Subjects read two stories and made memory predictions for the idea units in one and rated the importance of ideas in the other. Half of the subjects were asked to recall the story immediately after reading the passages and half were asked to recall 1 week later; half received passages with single inconsistent idea units and half received passages with corresponding consistent idea units. All subjects made confidence judgments about the accuracy of their recall. Subjects' prediction ratings were related to recall, as shown by significant prediction accuracy quotients. Importance ratings were related to recall on the delayed test but not on the immediate test. Memory prediction ratings predicted recall better than did importance ratings. The absolute level of memory predictions did not differ with delay, but subjects did give higher confidence judgments on an immediate than on a delayed test. Subjects recalled the inconsistent idea better than the consistent idea for one story but not for the other. For both stories, subjects predicted that they would remember the inconsistent ideas better, suggesting that they have avon Restorff-type view, rather than a schema view, of memory. We conclude that subjects can predict their memory for the idea units in narrative text. © 1987 Psychonomic Society, Inc.