Metamemory refers to the metacognitive awareness of one’s own memory status. Previous research has shown that item value plays a dominant role in self-regulated study (e.g., strategic choices regarding when, what, and how to study). In spite of extensive research on the effects of item value on in learners’ study behaviour, less is known about the effects of item value on judgments of learning (JOLs; i.e., metacognitive predictions about the likelihood that a given item can be remembered at a future occasion), especially when item value and item difficulty conflict. Three experiments were conducted in the present study to examine whether the effect of item-value can override the effect of item difficulty on JOLs. In each trial, three word pairs, associated with varying difficulty levels, were presented simultaneously, and the three pairs were all associated with a single point value in the constant-value condition, but with different point values in the tradeoff condition. Point values were presented alongside the word pairs. After the learning phase, participants made item-by-item JOLs. Experiment 1 demonstrated that JOLs systematically decreased with the increase of item difficulty in the constant value condition. Critically, item-value eliminated (but failed to reverse) people’s preference for easy items in the 1–3-6 tradeoff condition. Experiment 2 expanded the value gradient and found a full reversal, such that JOLs were primarily influenced by item value. Experiment 3 measured study time allocation to explore the mechanisms underlying learners’ metacognitive monitoring process. A mediation analysis showed that the direct effect of value on JOLs was apparent only when value was highly salient; with lower value salience, the effect of value on JOLs was entirely mediated by changes in study time. The findings of the present study further complement the agenda-based regulation (ABR) model on value-directed metacognitive monitoring. An analytic method to examine the function of a particular cue on JOLs for the cue-utilization hypothesis is also provided.

中文翻译：

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权衡学习条件下价值对学习判断的影响：学习时间的中介作用

元记忆是指对自己记忆状态的元认知。先前的研究表明，物品价值在自我调节研究中起着主导作用（例如，关于何时，什么以及如何进行研究的战略选择）。尽管对项目价值对学习者学习行为的影响进行了广泛研究，但关于项目价值对学习判断的影响知之甚少（JOL；即，关于在某项条件下可以记住给定项目的可能性的元认知预测）将来的情况），尤其是在项目价值和项目难度发生冲突时。在本研究中进行了三个实验，以检验项目值的影响是否可以覆盖项目难度对JOL的影响。在每个试验中，同时展示了与难度级别不同相关的三个单词对，在固定值条件下，三对均与单个点值相关联，而在权衡条件下，这三对均与不同的点值相关联。点值在单词对旁边显示。在学习阶段之后，参与者逐项制作了JOL。实验1表明，在定值条件下，JOL随着项目难度的增加而系统地降低。至关重要的是，在1-3权衡的情况下，项目价值消除了（但未能逆转）人们对简单项目的偏好。实验2扩展了值梯度并发现了完全逆转，因此JOL主要受项目值的影响。实验3测量了学习时间分配，以探索学习者元认知监控过程的潜在机制。调解分析表明，只有当价值非常显着时，价值对JOL的直接影响才明显。值显着性较低时，价值对JOL的影响完全由学习时间的变化介导。本研究的结果进一步补充了价值导向的元认知监控的基于议程的监管（ABR）模型。还提供了一种分析方法，可针对线索使用假设检查JOL上特定线索的功能。