Questionnaire research on metamemory and aging: Issues of structure and function

Abstract

The title of this chapter is so commodious that it may be useful to begin by tidying up the domain of interest. First, there are two chapters in this section devoted to metamemory and aging; the other is Chapter 23 by John Cavanaugh. The field has been divided in a convenient way, and perhaps a theoretically and methodologically meaningful way. Specifically, Cavanaugh presents a discussion of the literature on metamemory and aging, where "metamemory" is operationally defined with any of multiple experimental (often on-line laboratory) tasks. I, on the other hand, have been charged with introducing the topic in a general (and certainly all too brief) manner and focusing attention on the metamemory and aging literature, where "metamemory" is indicated by verbal-report data (especially questionnaire data).