A lifespan study of the confidence-accuracy relation in working memory and episodic long-term memory

Greene, Nathaniel R., Forsberg, Alicia, Guitard, Dominic, Naveh-Benjamin, Moshe and Cowan, Nelson 2024. A lifespan study of the confidence-accuracy relation in working memory and episodic long-term memory. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General 153 (5) , pp. 1336-1360. 10.1037/xge0001551

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Abstract

The relation between an individual’s memory accuracy and reported confidence in their memories can indicate self-awareness of memory strengths and weaknesses. We provide a lifespan perspective on this confidence-accuracy relation, based on two previously published experiments with 320 participants, including children aged 6 to 13, young adults aged 18 to 27, and older adults aged 65 to 77, across tests of working memory (WM) and long-term memory (LTM). Participants studied visual items in arrays of varying set sizes and completed item recognition tests featuring six-point confidence ratings either immediately after studying each array (WM tests) or following a long period of study events (LTM tests). Confidence-accuracy characteristic analyses showed that accuracy improved with increasing confidence for all age groups and in both WM and LTM tests. These findings reflect a universal ability across the lifespan to use awareness of the strengths and limitations of one’s memories to adjust reported confidence. Despite this age invariance in the confidence-accuracy relation, however, young children were more prone to high-confidence memory errors than other groups in tests of WM, whereas older adults were more susceptible to high-confidence false alarms in tests of LTM. Thus, although participants of all ages can assess when their memories are weaker or stronger, individuals with generally weaker memories are less adept at this confidence-accuracy calibration. Findings also speak to potential different sources of high-confidence memory errors for young children and older adults, relative to young adults.

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Publication
Status:	Published
Schools:	Psychology
Publisher:	American Psychological Association
ISSN:	0096-3445
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	30 January 2024
Date of Acceptance:	11 January 2024
Last Modified:	10 Nov 2024 14:15
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/165956

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