Limited cue integration in metacognitive control decisions

Abstract Metacognitive judgments and decisions involve uncertainty and rely on probabilistic cues. Prior research shows that people integrate multiple cues when making judgments of learning (JOLs). The present study examined whether metacognitive control decisions are influenced by multiple cues as well. In each of two experiments, participants studied 60 words varying on two cues (Experiment 1: concreteness, emotionality; Experiment 2: font format, word frequency). In Experiment 1, all participants made restudy choices to maximize later recall, whereas in Experiment 2, half made restudy choices, and the other half provided JOLs. Participants who made restudy choices restudied their selected items, and all participants completed a recall test at the end of the experiment. At the group level, both cues influenced restudy choices in Experiment 1, but only one cue did so in Experiment 2. Individual-level analyses of Experiment 2 revealed that most participants used both cues, yet the direction of cue use differed across participants: Some participants more often selected items with cue values associated with lower JOLs, whereas others more often selected items with cue values associated with higher JOLs. Overall, effect sizes for cue effects on restudy choices were smaller than those for JOLs. These findings suggest that multiple cues guided metacognitive control decisions, but that cue integration and cue use were weaker and varied more across individuals than in metacognitive judgments. This pattern indicates that the alignment between monitoring and control is reduced by other factors influencing restudy choices.