Cognitive interruption as an object of metacognitive monitoring: Feeling of difficulty and surprise

Abstract

An important question regarding metacognition in problem solving is what triggers the metacognitive experience of feeling of difficulty? In this chapter, we present three experiments suggesting that feeling of difficulty arises from lack of fluency in processing due to either working memory load or cognitive interruption. Experiments 1 and 2 showed that working memory load reduces performance (as measured by accuracy of response and reaction times) and increases feeling of difficulty. Experiment 3 further demonstrated that reaction times and feeling of difficulty ratings increase with cognitive interruption caused by discrepancies in processing. Interestingly, in Experiment 3, feeling of difficulty correlated highly and positively with surprise, which is another response to discrepant events. The implications of these findings are discussed as are suggestions for future research. © 2010 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC.