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This randomized controlled trial explored the effects of parental reminiscing training on preschoolers' memory and metacognition among French-speaking White parents and their typically developing children (24 females, 20 males; M[subscript months] = 49.64) in Belgium. Participants were assigned, with age stratification, to the immediate intervention (n = 23) or waiting-list group (n = 21). The assessments were conducted by blind evaluators before the intervention, immediately after, and 6 months later. Resulting specifically from the intervention, parents sustainably improved their reminiscing style (e.g., greater provision of feedback and use of metamemory comments). The effects of the intervention on children's outcomes were, however, less clear. Based on the social-constructivist approach, such effects could be expected to occur later.

Author(s): Marie Geurten [sup.1] , Patrick Lemaire [sup.2] Author Affiliations: (1) grid.4861.b, 0000 0001 0805 7253, Psychology and Neuroscience of Cognition Unit, University of Liège, , B33 Trifacultaire - Quartier [...], How specific learning disabilities (SLD) affect metacognition in children? Given the importance of metacognition for cognitive growth during childhood, we aimed at determining whether metacognitive development in children with SLD undergo a shift from domain-specific to domain-general, as found during typical development. Children with SLD (N = 39; 20 females) and matched controls (N = 78; 40 females) aged between 10 and 14 (mean age = 12.2 years; mean parental education = 12.8 years) had to select the better strategy on each item in memory and arithmetic problem-solving tasks. Strategy use and judgments of confidence were assessed on each trial for each individual. We found that both children with SLD and controls had scores higher than chance when judging whether they selected the better strategy on a given item in both the arithmetic and the memory domains. Moreover, children with SLD were less accurate than controls when making their judgments. Furthermore, while our data showed a pattern consistent with domain-general metacognition in the control group, metacognition is bounded by task content in the SLD group. Implications of these findings to further our understanding of differences in metacognition between typically developing children and children with specific learning disabilities are discussed.

We tested whether changes in attribution processes could account for the developmental differences observed in how children's use fluency to guide their memory decisions. Children ranging in age from 4 to 9 years studied a list of familiar or unfamiliar cartoon characters. In Experiment 1 (n = 84), participants completed a recognition test during which the perceptual fluency of some items was enhanced using a prime. In Experiment 2 (n = 96), participants completed a source recollection judgment on their recognition decisions. Primed items were recognized at a higher rate than unprimed items. However, while young children rely on fluency for all items, older children use fluency only for unfamiliar items. This pattern came together with a reduction in familiarity-based--but not recollection-based--memory responses.

Recently, several studies have suggested that metacognition emerges early in infancy and toddlerhood. However, to date, the developmental trajectory of these early metacognitive monitoring and control processes and their influence on children's later memory functioning remains poorly understood. The aim of this study was to longitudinally document the development of metacognition between the ages of 2.5 and 4.5 years and to examine the link between these early metacognitive skills and later memory performance. To do so, 69 children initially aged 29–33 months old (NT0 = 69; 32 females; Mage = 32.3 months; SD = 1.6) were tested at three time points (12-month intervals) with a recognition memory paradigm designed to assess both metacognitive monitoring, through retrospective confidence judgment, and metacognitive control, through a cue selection task (i.e., children had the opportunity to ask for a cue to help them change their memory decision). In addition, at the last session, an episodic memory task (story recall) was also administered. Our results revealed an improvement in monitoring and control processes between 2.5 and 4.5 years with above-chance performance from around age 3.5. Mixed-effects modeling also indicated that metacognitive monitoring at ages 2.5 and 4.5, but not—unexpectedly—metacognitive control, was related to children's memory performance at age 4.5. Overall, our results provide evidence to enhance our understanding of the developmental course of metacognition from toddlerhood to early childhood and suggest that metacognitive processes are involved in memory performance much earlier than had previously been shown. Public Significance Statement: Metacognition is a key factor for successful learning. Here, by studying how early metacognitive skills improve in toddlers and young children, we found evidence suggesting that early metacognitive skills could be related to children's memory functioning up to two years later. Such results suggest that early metacognition could be linked to children's later cognitive development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous research has suggested that fluency does not influence memory decisions until ages 7-8. In two experiments (n = 96 and n = 64, respectively), children, aged 4, 6, and 8 years (Experiments 1 and 2), and adults (Experiment 2) studied a list of pictures. Participants completed a recognition test during which each study item was preceded by a sound providing either a highly predictive or mildly predictive context in order to make some test items more conceptually fluent. Overall, highly predictive items were recognized at a higher rate than mildly predictive items demonstrating an earlier development of the fluency heuristic than previously observed. The study provides insight into how children develop metacognitive expectations and when they start to use them to guide their memory responses.

It is well established that negative emotions influence a range of cognitive processes. How these emotions influence the metacognitive judgement individuals make about their own performance and whether this influence is similar depending on the conditions under which metacognition is assessed, however, is far less understood. The primary aim of this study was to determine whether exposure to emotional stimuli could influence metacognitive judgements made under short or long time constraints. A total sample of 144 young adults (aged 18–35 years) was recruited and asked to complete an arithmetic strategy selection task under emotional or neutral condition. Following each strategy selection trial, participants also provided a retrospective confidence judgement (RCJ). Both strategy selection and RCJ were collected under short or long time constraints (1,500 vs. 2,500 ms for strategy selection and 800 vs. 1,500 ms for RCJ). In addition to replicating previous findings showing lower rates of better strategy selection under negative emotions compared with neutral condition, an effect of negative stimuli on the accuracy of participants' confidence judgements was found, but only if participants had a short time limit to make their second-level evaluation. Such findings are consistent with the hypothesis that exposure to emotional stimuli disturbs early, but not late metacognitive processes and have important implications to further our understanding of the role of emotions on metacognition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The influence of parental reminiscing style – how parents discuss past events with their child – on preschoolers' independent memory skills (outside of parent–child conversations) and the processes involved in this effect (memory consolidation vs. development of strategies) is far from clear. To test this, 50 parent–child dyads (MChildAge = 52.12) were recruited. Parents' level of elaboration during reminiscing was measured while children completed tasks assessing their memories about two standardized events, one they had discussed with their parent and one they had not discussed, and an episodic task requiring the memorization of new information. Children of high‐elaborative parents performed better than children of low‐elaborative parents on the recognition test for the non‐discussed event and for the episodic memory task. This suggests that parental elaboration is related to preschoolers' independent memory skills and that its effect might exceed memory consolidation and depend on processes like the acquisition of strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID-19 pandemic and its lockdown in March 2020 have led to changes in lifestyle and increased levels of anxiety, depression, and fatigue. This survey examined a number of factors (anxiety state, sleep quality, daily activities, mental load, work-related variables) influencing mental and physical fatigue during lockdown and how these relations have evolved one year later. A cohort of 430 workers and 124 retirees were recruited in April-May 2020 (lockdown period, data set 1), and a subsample (133 workers and 40 retirees) completed the same questionnaire in April-May 2021 (data set 2). Linear regression models showed a significant subjective increase in both physical and mental fatigue in both worker and retiree groups during lockdown, and a supplementary increase in physical fatigue and anxiety level in spring 2021 compared to the lockdown period. During lockdown, anxiety level, concerns about COVID-19, work flexibility, mental load, and sleep metrics were associated with the evolution of fatigue among workers. For retirees, only anxiety and physical activity levels were linked to changes in physical fatigue. In April-May 2021, the only associations which remained significant were those in workers between fatigue and anxiety level and workload. These findings suggest that the increased fatigue levels during the lockdown are likely due to the swift and significant changes in daily routines (such as sleep patterns and work dynamics) and psychological states (including increased anxiety and concerns) prompted by the sanitary crisis. On the other hand, the increase in fatigue observed one year after the beginning of the pandemic seems to result from more psychological factors associated with the health situation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study examined the evolution observed in amnesic patients' use of motor fluency when making recognition memory decisions. In this experiment, 9 patients with amnesia and 18 matched controls were presented with two recognition memory tasks composed of 3 types of items: (1) natural words, (2) nonwords difficult to pronounce, and (3) nonwords easy to pronounce, the latter having been shown to be processed in a surprisingly fluent manner as long as participants can articulate them at a subvocal level (i.e., oral motor fluency). Our results provide evidence that the motor‐movement manipulation was successful to induce a fluency effect. More specifically, data revealed that both amnesic patients and control participants showed a pattern of response consistent with the use of fluency as a cue to memory for studied items. However, only control participants relied on fluency to increase their rate of "yes" responses for unstudied items. These results suggest that patients with amnesia set a more conservative response criterion before relying on oral motor fluency, showing a pattern consistent with the idea that fluency is only used as a cue to memory when it exceeds a certain threshold. These findings are discussed in terms of adaptative metacognition strategies implemented by amnesic patients to reduce fluency‐based memory errors as well as in terms of the variations that seem to occur in these strategies depending on the type of fluency that is experienced. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]