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Slocum ETD 8-17.pdf (327.63 KB)

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The Metacognitive Disambiguation Effect

Slocum, Jeremy
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=kent1501695995222876

Abstract Details

, MA, Kent State University, College of Arts and Sciences / Department of Psychological Sciences.
When presented with a novel label and instructed to find its referent, preschoolers consistently choose an unfamiliar kind of object rather than a familiar one. Several accounts of this disambiguation effect emphasize children’s tendency to reject a second label or referring expression for an object. However, these accounts are silent about whether children are aware that this is what they are doing. Two experiments evaluated performance on a task that required such awareness. This test of the metacognitive disambiguation effect involved deciding which of two buckets contained an exemplar of a novel label – a bucket of “things I know” or a bucket of “things I don’t know.” Most 4-year-olds passed this task. Most 3-year-olds failed it. A measure of metacognitive awareness of word knowledge predicted task performance on every trial except one in which a strong response-switching tendency was evident. These results support the hypothesis that as children develop an ability to judge whether various words and objects are ones that they know, they also develop a metacognitive representation of their tendency to map novel labels onto unfamiliar rather their familiar kinds of objects.
William Merriman (Advisor)
Cognitive Psychology; Developmental Psychology; Experimental Psychology; Psychology

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Slocum, J. (2017). The Metacognitive Disambiguation Effect [Master's thesis, Kent State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=kent1501695995222876

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Slocum, Jeremy. The Metacognitive Disambiguation Effect. 2017. Kent State University, Master's thesis. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=kent1501695995222876.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Slocum, Jeremy. "The Metacognitive Disambiguation Effect." Master's thesis, Kent State University, 2017. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=kent1501695995222876

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

kent1501695995222876
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© 2017, all rights reserved.
This open access ETD is published by Kent State University and OhioLINK.