The Influence Of Weight Perception On Metacognitive Monitoring And Control, And The Measurement Of Its Awareness

Metacognition is the cognition of individual cognition, including monitoring and control. It is an abstract, advanced cognitive activity (Brown & Baker,1984), So people would say that metacognition may not be the same as other cognitive activities, which affected by the impact of the perception information, it will not depend on the information, that is, metacognition is not embodied (Alban & Kelley,2013). Many studies have found that, perceptual information (font size, volume, weight etc.) would affect the metacognitive cognitive monitoring (e.g., Alban & Kelley,2013; Miele, Finn,& Molden,2011; Mueller, Dunlosky, Tauber,& Rhodes,2014; Rhodes & Castel, 2008,2009), These results provided a basis for the embodiment of metacognition. Therefore, present study investigated the impact of weight perception on metacognitive monitoring, and it will provide convergent evidence for the universality of perceptual information. A small number of studies also examined the effect of perceptual information on meta cognitive control (Li, Xie, Li,& Li,2015; Miele & Molden,2010; Rhodes & Castel,2009). and obtained different results. Therefore, investigating the influence of weight perception on metacognitive control can provide strong evidence for the embodiment of metacognitive control and provide further support for the embodiment of metacognition.In the past, researchers believed that metacognition is a kind of explicit and conscious processing. Gradually, researchers also found that metacognitive processing can also be implicit, unconscious (Ariel, Al-Harthy, Was,& Dunlosky,2011; Dunlosky & Ariel,2011b; Koriat,2000,2006; Reder & Schunn,1996), However, it had not been measured the consciousness of metacognitive processing directly. Conceptual metaphor theory (Lakoff & Johnson,1980) claimed that Weight can make the concept of the importance through the unconscious metaphor, and affects the cognitive processing. Then, the influence of weight perception on the individual metacognitive monitoring and control is also unconscious? The study adopted the method of structural knowledge attribution to measure the consciousness of the effect of weight perception on metacognitive monitoring and control, directly, which would provide evidence for the existence of unconscious metacognitive processing, Contributing to the further and comprehensive understanding of metacognitive processing.Four experiments were designed in this study, which were all within-subjects designs of single factor. Experiment 1 adopted the classical paradigm of judgment of learning, and examined the effect of weight perception (light:12.47g/heavy: 62.37g)on metacognitive monitoring (judgment of learning as the index). The result showed that participants made higher judgments of learning for word pairs attached on heavy paperboxes, compared with word pairs on light paperboxes(that is, weight effect on judgment of learning). On the basis of experiment 1, experiment 2 used the method of structural knowledge attribution to measure the basis on participants’ judgment of learning, thus investigating the awareness of the influence of weight perception on metacognitive monitoring.The result found that the effect of weight on learning judgment was only in the case of guess. Experiment 3 used the Metcalfe’s paradigm, it contained 2 small experiments. For experiment 3a and 3b, self-paced learning time and first item selection were adopted as the index of metcognitive control, respectively, investigating the influence of weight perception on metacognitive control. It showed that participants allocated more study time (experiment 3a) and preferred to first select to word pairs attached on heavy paperboxes (experiment 3b), compared with word pairs on light paperboxes. On the basis of experiment 3b, experiment 4 used the method of structural knowledge attribution to measure the basis on participants’first item selection, thus investigating the awareness of the influence of weight perception on metacognitive control. It showed that the phenomenon of individual first item selection was only in the case of "unconscious" structure knowledge, and under the condition of guess, specifically.The mainly conclusions were as follows:First, individual weight perception affected the metacognitive monitoring, and the effect of weight perception on individual metacognitive monitoring may be unconscious.Second, weight perception affected the metacognitive control, and the influence of weight perception on metacognitive control may be based on unconsciousness, and depends largely on guess.The study found that the perceptual information of weight affected the individual metacognitive monitoring and control, which supported the embodiment of metacognition; and it also found that the effect of weight on metacognitive monitoring was largely based on unconsciousness.