Thesis (M. S.)--Psychology, Georgia Institute of Technology, 2008. / Hertzog, Christopher, Committee Member ; Rogers, Wendy, Committee Member ; Smith, Anderson, Committee Member.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of North Carolina at Greensboro, 2007. / Title from PDF t.p. (viewed Oct. 22, 2007). Directed by Michael J. Kane; submitted to the Dept. of Psychology. Includes bibliographical references (p. 76-82).

Yes / Previous research has suggested that older adults who are more cognitively active in later life show an attenuation in cognitive decline in healthy aging. Furthermore, cognitive intervention studies have indicated that ecologically valid cognitive interventions can promote cognitive functioning but only in taskspecific abilities. Since it has been shown that the art of self‐testing can promote metacognitive awareness in older adults, attempting cryptic crosswords may be used as a cognitive intervention for older adults. In Experiments 1 and 2, a questionnaire technique was used and demonstrated that older adults became more aware of their episodic memory deficits after attempting cryptic crossword clues. Based on this, Experiment 3 used an intervention technique over a six‐week period to investigate whether such awareness enabled older adults to improve cognitive functioning in a number of domains. This experiment used a revolutionary within‐subjects technique to control for potential mediating factors. The results supported previous research in that older adults showed an increase in the monitoring pathway of metacognition but were unable to use this enhanced awareness to change their behaviour when undertaking objective tests of cognitive ability. Post‐hoc analysis highlighted subgroups of older adults who showed improvements in certain cognitive abilities, such as episodic memory functioning and judgement of learning abilities. The standard clinical trial technique might be inappropriate when testing either cognitive interventions or pharmacological tests. The within‐subjects approach could be adapted to investigate follow‐up effects of different types of interventions including ecologically valid cognitive interventions. / Harold Hyman Wingate Foundation

Judgments of Learning (JOLs) are judgments of the likelihood of remembering recently studied material on a future test. Although JOLs have been extensively studied, particularly due to their important applications in education, relatively little is known about the cognitive and neural processes supporting JOLs and how these processes relate to actual memory processing. Direct access theories describe JOLs as outputs following direct readings of memory traces and hence predict that JOLs cannot be distinguished from objective memory encoding operations. Inferential theories, by contrast, claim JOLs are products of the evaluation of a number of cues, perceived by learners to carry predictive value. This alternative account argues that JOLs are made on the basis of multiple underlying processes, which do not necessarily overlap with memory encoding. In this thesis, the neural and cognitive bases of JOLs were examined in a series of four ERP experiments. Across experiments the study phase ERP data showed that JOLs produce neural activity that is partly overlapping with, but also partly distinct from, the activity that predicts successful memory encoding. Furthermore, the neural correlates of successful memory encoding appear sensitive to the requirements to make a JOL, emphasising the close interaction between subjective and objective measures of memory encoding. Finally, the neural correlates of both JOLs and successful memory encoding were found to vary depending on the nature of the stimulus materials, suggesting that both phenomena are supported by multiple cognitive and neural systems. Although the primary focus was on the study phase ERP data, the thesis also contains two additional chapters reporting the ERP data acquired during the test phases of three of the original experiments. These data, which examined the relative engagements of retrieval processes for low and high JOL items, suggest that encoding processes specifically resulting in later recollection (as opposed to familiarity) form one reliable basis for making JOLs. Overall, the evidence collected in this series of ERP experiments suggests that JOLs are not pure products of objective memory processes, as suggested by direct access theories, but are supported by neural systems that are at least partly distinct from those supporting successful memory encoding. These observations are compatible with inferential theories claiming that JOLs are supported by multiple processes that can be differentially engaged across stimulus contents.