Trends and Prospects in Metacognition Research, 2010
The established orthodoxy within metacognition research has been that metacognitive skills emerge... more The established orthodoxy within metacognition research has been that metacognitive skills emerge around the age of 810 years (Veenman, Van Hout-Wolters, & Afflerbach, 2006) and are necessarily preceeded by other cognitive abilities such as the development of theory ...
How people perceive temporally overlapping intervals can inform us about the architecture and con... more How people perceive temporally overlapping intervals can inform us about the architecture and constraints of the human timing system. In the present study, we examined the time perception of two overlapping intervals in a nested context. In this context, one short interval (1 s) was temporally nested within another long interval (3 s). The data showed that although participants' perception of the short interval was unaffected by its temporal position within the long interval, estimates of the long interval decreased, the later the short interval appeared. These data indicate that participants perceive two overlapping intervals as three segments that must be summed in order to estimate the long interval. Importantly, the temporal relationships between overlapping intervals affect the estimates, because a recency weighting is applied to each segment during the summing process. Within pacemaker-accumulator models, these results could be seen as supporting a timing system composed of a single pacemaker and a single accumulator, but they could also constrain any account of human interval timing.
This study investigated the role of impaired inhibitory control as a factor underlying attention ... more This study investigated the role of impaired inhibitory control as a factor underlying attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Children with ADHD and typically developing children completed
Individuals with severe antisocial behaviour often demonstrate abnormalities or difficulties in e... more Individuals with severe antisocial behaviour often demonstrate abnormalities or difficulties in emotion processing. Antisocial behaviour typically onsets before adulthood and is reflected in antisocial individuals at the biological level. We therefore conducted a brain-based study of emotion processing in juvenile offenders. Male adolescent offenders and age-matched nonoffenders passively viewed emotional images whilst their brain activity was recorded using electroencephalography. The early posterior negativity (EPN) and the late positive potential (LPP) components were used as indices of emotion processing. For both juvenile offenders and non-offenders, the EPN differentiated unpleasant images from other image types, suggesting that early perceptual processing was not impaired in the offender group. In line with normal emotion processing, the LPP was significantly enhanced following unpleasant images for non-offenders. However, for juvenile offenders, the LPP did not differ across image categories, indicative of deficient emotional processing. The findings indicated that this brain-based hypo-reactivity occurred during a late stage of cognitive processing and was not a consequence of atypical early visual attention or perception. This study is the first to show attenuated emotion processing in juvenile offenders at the neural level. Overall, these results have the potential to inform interventions for juvenile offending.
This study investigated the way in which people time two overlapping intervals. Timing models alr... more This study investigated the way in which people time two overlapping intervals. Timing models already proposed in the literature predict different effects of the degree of overlap on each estimate, and empirical findings were compared to these predictions. Two unimodal experiments (in which each to-be-timed interval was a visual stimulus) and one bimodal experiment (in which one to-be-timed interval was auditory and the other visual) were conducted. The estimate of the first interval was either unaffected or decreased, and the estimate of the second interval consistently increased as the intervals were more temporally separated. The only model in the literature that could account for such result patterns is a single pacemaker single accumulator structure with an additional recency weighting (see the weighted sum of segments model). That is, participants appear to segment the two overlapping intervals into three non-overlapping and overlapping segments, time these segments separately, and then combine them to estimate each interval. Importantly, a recency weighting, determined by the time that has passed since the end of that segment, is also applied to each segment in the summation process. Further, in the bimodal experiment the order in which the stimuli of different modalities were presented affected the way in which they were timed, a finding that none of the current models can explain. This highlights that a comprehensive model of interval timing must consider not only the modalities of to-betimed intervals but also the order in which different modalities must be timed.
We investigated whether selecting a response for one task delays the conscious perception of anot... more We investigated whether selecting a response for one task delays the conscious perception of another stimulus (delayed conscious perception hypothesis). In two experiments, participants watched a revolving clock hand while performing two tasks in close succession (i.e. a dual-task). Two stimuli were presented with varying stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA). After each trial, participants separately estimated the onsets of the two stimuli on the clock face. Across two experiments and four conditions, we manipulated response requirements and assessed their impact on perceived stimulus onsets. Results showed that (a) providing speeded responses to the stimuli did lead to greater SOA-dependent misperceptions of both stimulus onsets as compared to a solely perceptual condition, and (b) that response grouping reduced these misperceptions. Overall, the results provide equivocal evidence for the delayed conscious perception hypothesis. They rather suggest that participants' estimates of the two stimulus onsets are biased by the interval between their responses.
Reports of introspective reaction times (iRTs) have been used to investigate conscious awareness ... more Reports of introspective reaction times (iRTs) have been used to investigate conscious awareness during dual-task situations. Previous studies showed that dual-task costs in RTs (the psychological refractory period, PRP, effect) are not reflected in participants' introspective reports. This finding has been attributed to conscious awareness of Task 2 being delayed while Task 1 is centrally processed. Here, we test this Temporal model and compare it to an alternative that assumes participants base their iRTs on experienced difficulty. We collected iRTs and difficulty estimates after each trial of a PRP paradigm in which the perceptual difficulty of either Task 2 (Experiment 1) or Task 1 (Experiment 2) was manipulated. Our results largely support the difficulty-based account, suggesting that in a dual-task situation, iRTs do not reflect timing of cognitive processes but are strongly influenced by the experience of difficulty.
The relationship between executive functions (inhibitory control and working memory) and metacogn... more The relationship between executive functions (inhibitory control and working memory) and metacognitive skills was investigated by applying correlational and regression analyses to data collected from two groups of children. To date, research in this area has lacked a theoretical model for considering these relationships; here we propose and test such a model. Our model hypothesises that if metacognitive skills are either monitoring or control processes, depending on the direction of information flow between the meta-and object-level, then each executive function should relate to one of these processes. Further, the contribution that executive functions and metacognitive skills make to educational achievement was examined. Results indicated that executive functions were more related to metacognitive skills in 5-yearolds than in 7-year-olds, and metacognitive skills were the most important predictors of educational achievement across both age groups. These data support an interpretation that the two skills are not identical to one another, and that executive functions could be 'necessary but not sufficient' antecedents to metacognitive skills, i.e. younger children's immature executive functions may limit their metacognitive skill use.
This study aimed to better understand how metacognitive skills develop in young children aged 5 t... more This study aimed to better understand how metacognitive skills develop in young children aged 5 to 7 years. In particular, we addressed whether developmental changes reflect quantitative or qualitative improvements, and how metacognitive skills change with age and task-specific ability. Previous research into the development of metacognitive skills has been somewhat limited by methodology—often there is an over-reliance on language skills and it is assumed that children are fully conscious of the skills they use. In this study, a new observational method was developed which aimed to better represent young children’s (n = 66) metacognitive skills by coding their verbalizations and non-verbal behavior during a problem-solving task. This method proved to be developmentally sensitive and illustrated both a quantitative increase in metacognitive skills, and qualitative changes in the types of monitoring and planning used throughout early development. Further, the results indicated that monitoring processes improve with age, control processes improve with both age and task-specific ability, and ‘failures of metacognitive skills’ are primarily affected by task-specific ability rather than age.
Inhibitory control (IC) is an important contributor to educational performance, and undergoes rap... more Inhibitory control (IC) is an important contributor to educational performance, and undergoes rapid development in childhood. Age-related changes in IC were assessed using an in-depth analysis of reaction time, the Lateralized Readiness Potential (LRP), and other event-related potential (ERP) measures to control for speed of processing. Five-year-olds, 8-year-olds and adults completed an adapted Stroop task. Both reaction time and ERP results suggest that IC does develop in this age range, over and above changes in speed of processing. The LRP identified two processes that contribute to IC. These processes develop at different rates--an early process, involving how the conflict is initially responded to is mature by age 5, while a later process, involving how the conflict is overcome is still developing after 8 years of age. We propose that these early and late processes reflect interference suppression and response inhibition, respectively. Further, a single-trial analysis of the LRP in the incongruent condition provides evidence that the LRP is consistent across trials and functionally similar in each age group. These results corroborate previous findings regarding the development of IC, and present a new and useful tool for assessing IC across development.
The established orthodoxy within metacognition research has been that metacognitive skills emerge... more The established orthodoxy within metacognition research has been that metacognitive skills emerge around the age of 810 years (Veenman, Van Hout-Wolters, & Afflerbach, 2006) and are necessarily preceeded by other cognitive abilities such as the development of theory ...
... com Improving methods of consulting with young people: Piloting a new model of consultation R... more ... com Improving methods of consulting with young people: Piloting a new model of consultation Richard C. Woolfson*, Donna Bryce, Lindsay Mooney, Michael Harker, Dorothy Lowe and Ellen Ferguson Renfrewshire Educational ...
Trends and Prospects in Metacognition Research, 2010
The established orthodoxy within metacognition research has been that metacognitive skills emerge... more The established orthodoxy within metacognition research has been that metacognitive skills emerge around the age of 810 years (Veenman, Van Hout-Wolters, & Afflerbach, 2006) and are necessarily preceeded by other cognitive abilities such as the development of theory ...
How people perceive temporally overlapping intervals can inform us about the architecture and con... more How people perceive temporally overlapping intervals can inform us about the architecture and constraints of the human timing system. In the present study, we examined the time perception of two overlapping intervals in a nested context. In this context, one short interval (1 s) was temporally nested within another long interval (3 s). The data showed that although participants' perception of the short interval was unaffected by its temporal position within the long interval, estimates of the long interval decreased, the later the short interval appeared. These data indicate that participants perceive two overlapping intervals as three segments that must be summed in order to estimate the long interval. Importantly, the temporal relationships between overlapping intervals affect the estimates, because a recency weighting is applied to each segment during the summing process. Within pacemaker-accumulator models, these results could be seen as supporting a timing system composed of a single pacemaker and a single accumulator, but they could also constrain any account of human interval timing.
This study investigated the role of impaired inhibitory control as a factor underlying attention ... more This study investigated the role of impaired inhibitory control as a factor underlying attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Children with ADHD and typically developing children completed
Individuals with severe antisocial behaviour often demonstrate abnormalities or difficulties in e... more Individuals with severe antisocial behaviour often demonstrate abnormalities or difficulties in emotion processing. Antisocial behaviour typically onsets before adulthood and is reflected in antisocial individuals at the biological level. We therefore conducted a brain-based study of emotion processing in juvenile offenders. Male adolescent offenders and age-matched nonoffenders passively viewed emotional images whilst their brain activity was recorded using electroencephalography. The early posterior negativity (EPN) and the late positive potential (LPP) components were used as indices of emotion processing. For both juvenile offenders and non-offenders, the EPN differentiated unpleasant images from other image types, suggesting that early perceptual processing was not impaired in the offender group. In line with normal emotion processing, the LPP was significantly enhanced following unpleasant images for non-offenders. However, for juvenile offenders, the LPP did not differ across image categories, indicative of deficient emotional processing. The findings indicated that this brain-based hypo-reactivity occurred during a late stage of cognitive processing and was not a consequence of atypical early visual attention or perception. This study is the first to show attenuated emotion processing in juvenile offenders at the neural level. Overall, these results have the potential to inform interventions for juvenile offending.
This study investigated the way in which people time two overlapping intervals. Timing models alr... more This study investigated the way in which people time two overlapping intervals. Timing models already proposed in the literature predict different effects of the degree of overlap on each estimate, and empirical findings were compared to these predictions. Two unimodal experiments (in which each to-be-timed interval was a visual stimulus) and one bimodal experiment (in which one to-be-timed interval was auditory and the other visual) were conducted. The estimate of the first interval was either unaffected or decreased, and the estimate of the second interval consistently increased as the intervals were more temporally separated. The only model in the literature that could account for such result patterns is a single pacemaker single accumulator structure with an additional recency weighting (see the weighted sum of segments model). That is, participants appear to segment the two overlapping intervals into three non-overlapping and overlapping segments, time these segments separately, and then combine them to estimate each interval. Importantly, a recency weighting, determined by the time that has passed since the end of that segment, is also applied to each segment in the summation process. Further, in the bimodal experiment the order in which the stimuli of different modalities were presented affected the way in which they were timed, a finding that none of the current models can explain. This highlights that a comprehensive model of interval timing must consider not only the modalities of to-betimed intervals but also the order in which different modalities must be timed.
We investigated whether selecting a response for one task delays the conscious perception of anot... more We investigated whether selecting a response for one task delays the conscious perception of another stimulus (delayed conscious perception hypothesis). In two experiments, participants watched a revolving clock hand while performing two tasks in close succession (i.e. a dual-task). Two stimuli were presented with varying stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA). After each trial, participants separately estimated the onsets of the two stimuli on the clock face. Across two experiments and four conditions, we manipulated response requirements and assessed their impact on perceived stimulus onsets. Results showed that (a) providing speeded responses to the stimuli did lead to greater SOA-dependent misperceptions of both stimulus onsets as compared to a solely perceptual condition, and (b) that response grouping reduced these misperceptions. Overall, the results provide equivocal evidence for the delayed conscious perception hypothesis. They rather suggest that participants' estimates of the two stimulus onsets are biased by the interval between their responses.
Reports of introspective reaction times (iRTs) have been used to investigate conscious awareness ... more Reports of introspective reaction times (iRTs) have been used to investigate conscious awareness during dual-task situations. Previous studies showed that dual-task costs in RTs (the psychological refractory period, PRP, effect) are not reflected in participants' introspective reports. This finding has been attributed to conscious awareness of Task 2 being delayed while Task 1 is centrally processed. Here, we test this Temporal model and compare it to an alternative that assumes participants base their iRTs on experienced difficulty. We collected iRTs and difficulty estimates after each trial of a PRP paradigm in which the perceptual difficulty of either Task 2 (Experiment 1) or Task 1 (Experiment 2) was manipulated. Our results largely support the difficulty-based account, suggesting that in a dual-task situation, iRTs do not reflect timing of cognitive processes but are strongly influenced by the experience of difficulty.
The relationship between executive functions (inhibitory control and working memory) and metacogn... more The relationship between executive functions (inhibitory control and working memory) and metacognitive skills was investigated by applying correlational and regression analyses to data collected from two groups of children. To date, research in this area has lacked a theoretical model for considering these relationships; here we propose and test such a model. Our model hypothesises that if metacognitive skills are either monitoring or control processes, depending on the direction of information flow between the meta-and object-level, then each executive function should relate to one of these processes. Further, the contribution that executive functions and metacognitive skills make to educational achievement was examined. Results indicated that executive functions were more related to metacognitive skills in 5-yearolds than in 7-year-olds, and metacognitive skills were the most important predictors of educational achievement across both age groups. These data support an interpretation that the two skills are not identical to one another, and that executive functions could be 'necessary but not sufficient' antecedents to metacognitive skills, i.e. younger children's immature executive functions may limit their metacognitive skill use.
This study aimed to better understand how metacognitive skills develop in young children aged 5 t... more This study aimed to better understand how metacognitive skills develop in young children aged 5 to 7 years. In particular, we addressed whether developmental changes reflect quantitative or qualitative improvements, and how metacognitive skills change with age and task-specific ability. Previous research into the development of metacognitive skills has been somewhat limited by methodology—often there is an over-reliance on language skills and it is assumed that children are fully conscious of the skills they use. In this study, a new observational method was developed which aimed to better represent young children’s (n = 66) metacognitive skills by coding their verbalizations and non-verbal behavior during a problem-solving task. This method proved to be developmentally sensitive and illustrated both a quantitative increase in metacognitive skills, and qualitative changes in the types of monitoring and planning used throughout early development. Further, the results indicated that monitoring processes improve with age, control processes improve with both age and task-specific ability, and ‘failures of metacognitive skills’ are primarily affected by task-specific ability rather than age.
Inhibitory control (IC) is an important contributor to educational performance, and undergoes rap... more Inhibitory control (IC) is an important contributor to educational performance, and undergoes rapid development in childhood. Age-related changes in IC were assessed using an in-depth analysis of reaction time, the Lateralized Readiness Potential (LRP), and other event-related potential (ERP) measures to control for speed of processing. Five-year-olds, 8-year-olds and adults completed an adapted Stroop task. Both reaction time and ERP results suggest that IC does develop in this age range, over and above changes in speed of processing. The LRP identified two processes that contribute to IC. These processes develop at different rates--an early process, involving how the conflict is initially responded to is mature by age 5, while a later process, involving how the conflict is overcome is still developing after 8 years of age. We propose that these early and late processes reflect interference suppression and response inhibition, respectively. Further, a single-trial analysis of the LRP in the incongruent condition provides evidence that the LRP is consistent across trials and functionally similar in each age group. These results corroborate previous findings regarding the development of IC, and present a new and useful tool for assessing IC across development.
The established orthodoxy within metacognition research has been that metacognitive skills emerge... more The established orthodoxy within metacognition research has been that metacognitive skills emerge around the age of 810 years (Veenman, Van Hout-Wolters, & Afflerbach, 2006) and are necessarily preceeded by other cognitive abilities such as the development of theory ...
... com Improving methods of consulting with young people: Piloting a new model of consultation R... more ... com Improving methods of consulting with young people: Piloting a new model of consultation Richard C. Woolfson*, Donna Bryce, Lindsay Mooney, Michael Harker, Dorothy Lowe and Ellen Ferguson Renfrewshire Educational ...
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