The Influence Of Beliefs About Processing Fluency On Judgments Of Learning

Judgments of learning(JOLs)are people's predictions about the likelihood of remembering recently studied materials and are now among the most highly investigated of all metacognitive judgments(Dunlosky&Metcalfe,2009).People use their JOLs to guide their learning and hence these monitoring judgments can contribute to the effectiveness of people's self-regulated learning(e.g.,Dunlosky&Rawson,2012;Kornell&Metcalfe,2006;Thiede,1999;Thiede,Anderson,&Therriault,2003).Given the importance of JOLs for effective regulation of learning associations,understanding how people monitor their learning has been a major focus of metacognitive research.Therefore,present study examined the influence of individual's beliefs about fluency on JOLs.In theory,it helps revealing the cognitive mechanism of judgments of learning,and in practice,it helps providing a scientific basis of teaching practice and guide students in their own learning situation for the correct assessment.Three experiments were conducted in the present study.A 2 × 2 mixed factorial design was used in experiment 1,which tested the influence of beliefs about the relationship between font color and processing fluency on JOLs.During the task instructions,some participants were led to believe that blue color was easier to process than green color,and the control group had no instructions.The result showed that beliefs about the relationship between font color and processing fluency can impact JOLs:JOLs were higher for blue font when blue font was associated with being easier to process;no difference in JOLs was found when neither color was associated with easier processing.Experiment 2 used a 2 × 3 mixed factorial design to tested the influence of beliefs about the relationship between font size and processing fluency on JOLs.During the task instructions,some participants were led to believe that large font was easier to process,some participants were led to believe that small font was easier to process,and a control group was not given any instructions.The result showed that beliefs about the relationship between font size and processing fluency can impact JOLs:JOLs were higher for large font when large font was associated with being easier to process,and JOLs were marginally higher for large font in the control;no difference in JOLs was found when small font was associated with easier processing,the font-size effect was eliminated.A 2 × 3 mixed factorial design was used in Experiment 3,which was designed to examine the influence of beliefs about the relationship between processing fluency and memory.During the task instructions,some participants were led to believe that easier processing associated with better memory,some participants were led to believe that the processing fluency is irrelevant to memory,and a control group was not given any instructions.The result showed that beliefs about the relationship between processing fluency and memory can impact JOLs:JOLs were higher for large font when easier processing is related to better memory,and JOLs were marginally higher for large font in the control;no difference in JOLs was found when processing fluency is irrelevant to memory.The mainly conclusions were as follows:(1)Beliefs about the relationship between font color and processing fluency can impact JOLs.(2)Beliefs about the relationship between font size and processing fluency can impact JOLs.(3)Beliefs about the relationship between processing fluency and memory can impact JOLs.(4)Our results provide direct evidence that beliefs about processing fluency appears to produce the font-size effect and plays an important role in is making judgments of learning.