a r t i c l e i n f o

1989; Flavell, Friedrichs, & Hoyt, 1970; Lipko, Dunlosky, Lipowski, & Merriman, 2012; Lipko, Dunlosky,& Merriman, 2009; Schneider, 1998; Shin, Bjorklund, & Beck, 2007; Stipek, Roberts, & Sanborn, 1984).Can children be more accurate predictors of their recall performance under certain conditions? Thisquestion represents the core of the current investigation. Before discussing the specics of how the

Fax: +1 585 395 2116.E-mail address: alipko@brockport.edu

Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 114 (2013) 357363

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Journal of Experimental Child0022-0965/$ - see front matter 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.new sets of stimuli. 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Introduction

Imagine watching a 4-year-old perform a simple memory task. She names and briey studies 10pictures, and an experimenter asks her, How many of these pictures do you think you can rememberonce I cover them up? She predicts that she will remember 9 pictures but then recalls only 3. Like thischild, previous research has demonstrated that children are overcondent and say that they canremember more pictures than they will actually be able to remember (e.g., Cunningham & Weaver,Article history:Received 26 March 2012Revised 12 September 2012Available online 1 November 2012

Keywords:MetacognitionDevelopmentOvercondenceRecall memoryPrediction accuracyPreschoolershttp://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jecp.2012.09.012a b s t r a c t

Preschoolers persistently predict that they will perform better thanthey actually can perform on a picture recall task. The currentinvestigation sought to explore a condition under which youngchildren might be able to improve their predictive accuracy.Namely, children were asked to predict their recall twice for thesame set of items. Childrens second predictions were signicantlyless overcondent than their initial predictions for a set of items.However, between trials (when the stimulus items changed), chil-drens initial predictions remained persistently overcondent.Children appear to have some understanding that past perfor-mance can predict future performance when predicting for thesame set of items, but they fail to apply this understanding toBrief Report

Can young children be more accurate predictors of theirrecall performance?

Amanda R. Lipko-Speed Department of Psychology, The College at Brockport, State University of New York, Brockport, NY 14420, USA

Psychologyjournal homepage: www.elsevier .com/locate/ jecp

358 A.R. Lipko-Speed / Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 114 (2013) 357363current investigation attempts to answer this question, previous research and theory in the area isreviewed.

Overcondence and children: previous research

Several studies have investigated young childrens overcondence, and the most relevant ones aresummarized here. One of the rst studies was conducted by Flavell et al. (1970), who examined youngchildrens prediction accuracy. Using a performance prediction paradigm, children in nursery school,kindergarten, second grade, and fourth grade were asked to predict how many out of 10 pictures theycould remember. On each trial, a single picture was added to a strip of paper (up to 10 pictures), andchildren were asked whether they would be able to remember the pictures. Childrens predicted mem-ory span was dened as the longest series of pictures they said they would be able to remember. In allage groups, the childrens predicted memory span was higher than their actual memory span.However, the nursery school children and kindergarteners were more overcondent than were thesecond- and fourth-graders. In fact, 57% of the nursery school children and 64% of the kindergartenerspredicted that they could remember more pictures than they were actually able to remember (see alsoYussen & Levy, 1975).

Shin et al. (2007) asked kindergarteners, rst-graders, and third-graders to predict picture recall ina supraspan task. Participants predicted how many pictures they would recall after studying 15 pic-tures and then were tested for how well they could actually recall 15 pictures. As in the previous stud-ies, kindergarteners and rst-graders signicantly overestimated their recall, and they weresignicantly more overcondent than third-graders. Lipko et al. (2009, Experiment 1) replicated thesendings using a similar method. Specically, 4- and 5-year-olds named and studied 10 familiar pic-tures. Next, they predicted how many they would be able to recall once the pictures were covered.On all three trials, children made predictions that were well above their actual performance level. Pre-dictions declined in value across trials, but childrens nal predictions remained overcondent. Inadditional experiments, Lipko and colleagues found that childrens overcondence persisted acrossve trials of the same picture recall task.

Similar ndings exist for physical and psychomotor tasks. For example, Stipek et al. (1984) asked 4-year-olds to predict how well they themselves could use a pulley to move a cart up a tower without amarble on the cart falling off. Children tended to overpredict their own performance on this task. BothSchneider (1998, Experiment 1) and Powel and colleagues (Powel, Bolich, & Stewart, 1993; Powel,Morelli, & Nusbaum, 1994) have replicated Stipek and colleagues (1984) ndings using throwingtasks. Specically, 4- to 6-year-olds were asked to predict how many balls or bean bags they couldthrow into a basket. In both studies, the older children made more accurate predictions than the youn-ger children, but all childrens predictions exceeded actual performance.

A number of theoretical explanations have been offered as to why young childrens overcondenceis so persistent. These explanations are not mutually exclusive. Rather, each one may help to providepartial understanding of young childrens overcondence. One such explanation is the wishful think-ing hypothesis, which posits that children base their predictions on how they desire to perform ratherthan on how they think they will actually perform (Stipek et al., 1984). Thus, their predictions arebased on their wishes rather than on true estimates of their performance. Stipek et al. (1984) foundthat 4-year-olds overpredicted their own performance on the tower task described earlier by a greatermargin than they did for the performance of another child. This result is consistent with the wishfulthinking hypothesis, assuming that childrens desired level of performance for themselves exceedsthat which they desire for other children. When Schneider (1998, Experiment 1) asked 4- and 6-year-olds to predict how many balls they would shoot into a basket, he too found that both groupsmade self-predictions that exceeded their predictions for others. In further support of this hypothesis,the number of shots that one group of children predicted they would make on each trial was compa-rable to the number that another group of children indicated they wished to make on each trial. Inter-estingly, memory tasks have not yielded the same supportive results for the wishful thinkinghypothesis (Lipko et al., 2009; Schneider, 1998), leading to the conclusion that the hypothesis providesonly a partial explanation for childrens overcondence.

demonstrated performance level. Schneider (1998) evaluated this hypothesis by asking 4- and 6-

was excellent in that children could accurately remember how many pictures they had been able to

recall on the previous trial. Yet, their predictions remained overcondent and were not signicantlydifferent from those of children who had not been asked to report about recall on previous trials.

Why did the childrens predictions remain overcondent? Answers to this question follow fromtwo hypotheses that isolate childrens difculties in improving their accuracy with task experience.One hypothesis is that children do not understand that past memory performance predicts future per-formance on memory tasks. The alternative hypothesis claims that they do have this basic under-standing, yet they fail to apply this knowledge to new lists. Put differently, they realize that theywould have difculty in recalling words from a list with which they had just recalled a few items,but they do not realize that their poor performance on one list is relevant to their performance ona new list. Research conducted by Powel et al. (1993) provides suggestive evidence to support thishypothesis. Namely, children remained overcondent across multiple trials of a bean-bag tossing taskdespite being aware of their previous poor performance. More important, when asked to reportwhether a discrepancy occurred between their predictions and actual performance, children who wereaware of their overcondence (vs. those who were unaware) were no more likely to incorporate thisknowledge into their future predictions. Thus, children failed to apply their knowledge of their pastperformance to their predictions of their future performance.

The current experiment investigated both hypotheses discussed above by asking children to maketwo predictions for each list: one prediction immediately after the list had been studied and anotherprediction for the same list but immediately after the list had been recalled. For the second prediction,children were asked to predict how many items they would recall of the same list if they needed torecall it again, and immediately after making this second prediction, they were asked to recall thewords from the same list again. The expectations from the two hypotheses are straightforward. If chil-dren understand that past memory performance predicts future performance for the same list, thentheir second prediction should be lower than their rst prediction. If they fail to apply this knowledgeto the next list, then the rst prediction should remain high and, just as important, the rst predictionof trial n should be higher than the second prediction of trial n 1. By contrast, if children do not havea rm understanding that the past predicts future memory performance, then their rst and secondpredictions should not differ across trials.

Method

Participants

A total of 27 preschoolers (mean age = 4 years 6 months, range = 4 years 0 months to 5 years5 months) who attended preschools in the Rochester, New York, area in the northeastern United Stateswere tested individually at the preschool.

Materials, design, and procedure

Before beginning the task, children were asked to give their verbal assent. Next, the experimenteryear-olds to make postdictions of their performance on a nal trial of a location memory task. Thesepostperformance judgments were quite accurate, suggesting that children were aware of how theyhad performed. Lipko et al. (2009, Experiment 3) replicated Schneiders ndings with their picture re-call task, with 4- and 5-year-olds naming and studying 10 different pictures on each trial. Followingthe study period, children were asked to report howmany of the pictures they recalled on the previoustrial (trial n 1). Immediately after, children were also asked to predict how many pictures theywould be able to recall on the current trial (trial n). Across trials, childrens performance monitoringAnother explanation for young childrens persistent overcondence is the monitoring deciencyhypothesis (Schneider, 1998). According to this hypothesis, young children do not accurately monitortheir performance on a task. As a result, they continue to give predictions that are well above their

A.R. Lipko-Speed / Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 114 (2013) 357363 359provided instructions for a version of the task used in Lipko and colleagues (2009) study. Here,

10 pictures were individually presented and were named by the children. After all pictures had beenpresented, children were given 10 s to study them. Next, children were asked, How many of thesepictures do you think you are going to be able to remember once I cover them up? The pictures werethen covered, and children were given 60 s to recall the pictures. The experimenter then told childrenthe number of pictures they had recalled. Next, the experimenter instructed children that they wouldbe asked to try to remember the same pictures again. Specically, the experimenter said, I am goingto ask you to try to remember the pictures hiding underneath the paper again. Howmany of these pic-tures will you be able to remember this time? The experimenter pointed to the pictures that werecovered to help children understand that their recall prediction was about the same set of picturesthey had just tried to recall. After providing their recall prediction, children had 60 s to recall the pic-tures. The pictures were uncovered, and the experimenter informed children of how many they hadrecalled. The entire procedure was repeated three more times with new pictures for each trial set.

Results and discussion

Analyses were rst conducted with gender as a factor, but the main effect of gender and all inter-actions including it were not signicant, so it is not discussed further.

First 8.41 (0.44) 4.33 (0.37) 4.08

360 A.R. Lipko-Speed / Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 114 (2013) 357363Second 6.55 (0.66) 3.78 (0.30) 2.77

Trial 2First 7.70 (0.54) 3.48 (0.29) 4.22Second 4.70 (0.53) 2.44 (0.30) 2.26

Trial 3First 7.59 (0.49) 2.78 (0.27) 4.81Second 4.81 (0.55) 1.85 (0.26) 2.96

Trial 4First 7.46 (0.53) 2.96 (0.27) 4.50Second 3.89 (0.50) 2.00 (0.25) 1.89

Note: Standard errors are in parentheses. On each trial, children made two predictions and recall attempts for the same set ofpictures. First refers to the rst prediction and recall attempt on a trial. Second refers to the second prediction and recallattempt on a trial.Judgment accuracy

Mean prediction accuracy (predicted recall actual recall) was computed for each participant (seeTable 1). Note that each participant made two predictions and two recall attempts for each trial. A 2(Task: rst prediction or second prediction)? 4 (Trial: 1, 2, 3, or 4) mixed analysis of variance (ANOVA)of childrens prediction accuracy yielded only a signicant main effect of task, F(1,25) = 12.33, p < .01,partial g2 = .33. Namely, childrens second predictions were signicantly more accurate than their ini-tial predictions, supporting the hypothesis that children understand that the past predicts the futureand can incorporate this information into their predictions. Prediction accuracy for both rst and sec-ond predictions was signicantly greater than zero across all trials, ts > 3.25, ps < .01, Cohens (1988)ds > 1.20, indicating that all predictions (even the second on each trial) were overcondent.

Recall magnitudes

Mean recall magnitudes are reported in Table 1. To compare the rst and second recall valuesacross trials, a 2 (Recall Timing: rst or second)? 4 (Trial: 1, 2, 3, or 4) mixed ANOVA yielded signicant

Table 1Mean prediction and recall values across trials.

Prediction Recall Accuracya

Trial 1a Accuracy = prediction recall, with a value of zero representing perfect accuracy.

do not apply this knowledge between stimulus sets.this hypothesis, young childrens predictions are based on their wishes rather than on their actualexpectations. In Lipko and colleagues (2009) study, the wishful thinking hypothesis was not sup-ported as an explanation for young childrens persistent overcondence on the picture recall task,but it is possible that wishful thinking may inuence childrens judgments differently under the con-ditions of the current experiment. More specically, when asked to predict their recall for the same setof pictures immediately after recalling and receiving feedback on their recall of them, childrens pre-dictions may be more inuenced by their actual performance expectations. However, when asked tomake a prediction about a new set of pictures, wishful thinking may again become a more potent fac-tor and override their knowledge that past performance predicts future performance.

Another possible explanation for why children fail to apply their knowledge is that they inconsis-tently rely on the memory for past test heuristic. According to this heuristic, a prediction that occursGeneral discussion

A focal issue of this research was whether young childrens accuracy in their performance predic-tions can be improved, and results indicated that it can be. In particular, childrens second predictionsmade for a set of pictures after attempting to recall them were signicantly less overcondent thantheir initial predictions, although all predictions were overcondent. The fact that childrens secondpredictions were much closer to their actual performance suggests that they have some understandingthat the past predicts the future. Consistent with this interpretation, children can accurately remem-ber their recall performance on previous trials of this picture recall task (e.g., Lipko et al., 2009). Inter-estingly, childrens substantial overcondence returned when they were asked to study and make aprediction for new pictures. Thus, childrens overcondence persists even with practice and is local-ized to a failure in applying knowledge that the past can predict the future to new sets of pictures.

Why do young children fail to apply this important knowledge? One explanation involves wishfulthinking, which was discussed above in detail (e.g., Lipko et al., 2009; Stipek et al., 1984). According tomain effects of recall timing, F(1,25) = 34.03, p < .01, partial g2 = .57, and trial, F(3,75) = 17.03, p < .01,partial g2 = .40, but no signicant interactions. Across all four trials, children recalled signicantlymore pictures on their rst recall attempt than on their second recall attempt on the same trial,ts > 2.37, ds > 0.92. The mean number of pictures recalled on the rst recall attempt on Trial 1 was sig-nicantly greater than the mean number of pictures recalled on the rst recall attempt on Trials 2, 3,and 4, ts > 2.14, p < .01, ds > 0.83. The mean number of pictures recalled on the second recall attempton the rst trial was signicantly greater than the mean number of pictures recalled on the secondrecall attempt on Trials 2, 3, and 4, ts > 4.17, p < .01, ds > 1.62. The mean number of pictures recalledon the second recall attempt of the second trial was also signicantly greater than the mean number ofpictures recalled on the second recall attempt on the third trial, t(26) = 2.13, p < .05, d = 0.84.

Prediction magnitudes

Mean prediction magnitudes are reported in Table 1. To compare the rst and second predictionvalues across trials, a 2 (Prediction Timing: rst or second)? 4 (Trial: 1, 2, 3, or 4) mixed ANOVAyielded signicant main effects of prediction timing, F(1,25) = 36.23, p < .01, partial g2 = .59, and trial,F(3,75) = 5.95, p < .01, partial g2 = .19, but no signicant interactions. On each trial, childrens rst pre-dictions on a trial were signicantly higher in value than their second predictions, ts > 2.36, ds > 0.92.Thus, children predicted that they could recall more pictures the rst time they made a prediction for aset of pictures compared with the second time they made a prediction for the same set of pictures.First predictions did not signicantly differ across trials, ts < 1.79. However, the mean second predic-tion on the rst trial was signicantly greater than the mean second prediction on the last trial,t(25) = 3.20, p < .01, d = 1.25, and the mean second prediction on the second trial t(26) = 2.30,p < .05, d = 0.90. Taken together, the entire pattern of data supports the hypothesis that even thoughyoung children seem to have the knowledge that past performance predicts future performance, they

A.R. Lipko-Speed / Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 114 (2013) 357363 361on a second trial is based on memory for performance on a prior test trial (England & Serra, 2012; Finn

362 A.R. Lipko-Speed / Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 114 (2013) 357363& Metcalfe, 2007, 2008). Recently, Lipko et al. (2012) asked children of different ages to make recallpredictions for the same pictures across multiple trials and found that kindergarteners did not consis-tently rely on this heuristic, whereas third-graders did consistently use it. Thus, younger childrenspredictions remained overcondent across multiple trials involving the same set of pictures, whereasthird-graders predictions became accurate and at times undercondent.

In the current investigation, childrens predictions between trials were made for different sets ofpictures; nevertheless, preschoolers still could have used recall performance on one trial to adjusttheir rst prediction on the next trial. To evaluate whether memory for past test performance hadany inuence on their rst prediction for each trial, correlations between the second recall attempton one trial and the rst prediction on the next trial were computed. The Pearson r correlations were.08, .24, and .10 on Trials 2, 3, and 4, respectively. These nonsignicant correlations are in theopposite direction as would be expected if the children were using their memory for prior recall at-tempts when making their predictions on subsequent trials. In addition, the second recall on one trialwas positively related to recall on the next trial (rs = .44, .52, and .54 for Trials 2, 3, and 4, respectively,ps < .05), indicating that past test performance was a diagnostic cue for predicting subsequent perfor-mance. Thus, it appears that preschoolers underuse the memory for past test heuristic, and in the cur-rent case failing to use it partly contributed to their overcondence.

So, the answer to the question posed in the title of this article is yes, children can be more accuratepredictors of their memory recall under certain conditions. Based on the current investigation, chil-drens predictive accuracy improves when they are predicting their recall for the same set of itemsmore than once. Children appear to have some awareness that it is wise to lower their second judg-ments for a set of pictures they have already recalled once, but they do not seem to lower them sys-tematically and certainly underuse memory for past test performance, as demonstrated by the factthat even second predictions on each trial were overcondent. At times, they rely on knowledge thatthe past can predict the future, but their reliance is inconsistent and other factors likely inuence theirpredictions as well. One such factor may be task instructions. Requesting a second prediction for thesame set of pictures may have cued children on some trials to lower their predictions to a more real-istic value. They may have interpreted the request as a signal that their rst predictions had been toohigh.

Future investigations should examine whether asking children to predict their recall for the sameset of items more than twice would result in additional improvement in prediction accuracy.Although in the current study second predictions for a set of items were signicantly less overcon-dent than rst predictions for a set of items, they never were fully accurate. Perhaps additional expe-rience with a set of items would lead young children to become accurate predictors of their ownrecall. Note also that childrens persistent overcondence between trials and reduced overcondencewithin trials may serve an important purpose. According to the adaptivity hypothesis, various aspectsof cognitive immaturity such as overcondence in young children can be explained evolutionarilyand, thus, serve an important purpose in childrens success (e.g., Bjorklund & Green, 1992; Bjorklund,Perris, & Causey, 2009). Overcondence is expected to be benecial because it can lead to persistenceon a task. When children rst try a new task, their performance is often subpar. By remaining over-condent in their low performance, they may be more likely to keep trying. If children are motivatedto continue a task, they will subsequently gain practice, which itself may lead to increased overallperformance (Shin et al., 2007). However, remaining overcondent in the face of feedback can leadto persistent failure on some tasks, especially if young children believe that the amount of effort theyexert on a task is directly predictive of their success (Stipek & MacIver, 1989). Believing that effort,rather than their previous performance, is a good indicator of future performance, children are likelyto remain overcondent and might not seek to improve their performance. In such cases, childrenmight not appropriately adapt their behavior to improve task performance and might not seek helpfrom teachers, peers, or parents when necessary. Accordingly, an interesting direction for future re-search would be to conduct training studies in which young children are taught how to incorporatethe knowledge that the past can predict the future when they predict performance across differenttasks.

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Can young children be more accurate predictors of their recall performance?IntroductionOverconfidence and children: previous research

MethodParticipantsMaterials, design, and procedure

Results and discussionJudgment accuracyRecall magnitudesPrediction magnitudes

General discussionReferences