Linda Baker
Department of Psychology
University of Maryland, Baltimore County
Maryland Metacognition Seminar
May 10, 2013
“The vice of the poor reader is to
say the words to himself without
actively making judgments as to
what they reveal.”
E. L. Thorndike, 1917
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Metacognition and comprehension
monitoring: Definition and assessment
My early empirical research on
comprehension monitoring
A new pursuit: Neuroscience connections
Work in progress:
◦ Pilot results for fMRI cognitive monitoring tasks
◦ Research plan
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My research on metacognition had its roots in
the 1970s work of cognitive developmental
psychologists John Flavell and Ann Brown, whose
interests in memory development led them to ask
what children know about their memory and how
they learn to control it.
Research on metacognition in relation to student
achievement continues to be a significant area of
inquiry around the world.
Evidence of popular appeal: A Google search for
“metacognition and achievement” yielded
586,000 hits in April of 2013.
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Knowledge: Knowledge about the skills,
strategies, and resources that are needed to
perform a task effectively
Control: the use of self-regulatory strategies to
ensure successful task completion
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Planning
Evaluating
Monitoring
Checking
Revising
Baker & Brown,1984
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Conceptions of good readers/good reading
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Strategies for dealing with comprehension difficulties
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Strategies for studying/remembering
◦ What makes someone a really good reader?
◦ If you know someone was having trouble reading, how
would you help that person?
◦ What do you do when you come to a word that you don’t
know?
◦ What do you do when you don’t understand something that
you have read?
◦ What do you do to help remember what you’ve read?
◦ If you needed to study a chapter in your history book for a
test, how would you do it?
Meyers & Paris, 1978
Directions: Listed below are statements about what people do when
they read academic or school related materials such as textbooks or
library books. After reading the statements circle the number that
applies to you. Please note there are no right or wrong answers.
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I think about what I know to help me understand
what I read. (global reading strategy)
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I summarize what I read to reflect on important
information in the text. (support reading strategy)
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I adjust my reading speed according to what I’m
reading. (problem solving strategy)
(Each item is rated on a 5-point scale with respect to how
often the reader does the described activity.)
(Mokhtari & Reichard, 2002)
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Evaluation
◦ Keeping track of the success or
failure of one’s own ongoing efforts
to understand
Regulation
◦ Taking appropriate steps to deal with
whatever difficulties arise
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Detection of errors in passages
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Ratings of felt understanding
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Self-corrections during oral reading
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Real-time measures of processing
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Verbal reports
◦ Eye movements, reading times, NEUROIMAGING???
◦ Retrospective
◦ Concurrent (thinking aloud)
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The planet Jupiter is far from the sun. It is also the largest
planet in our solar system. Jupiter circles the sun once every
12 years. Jupiter is a thousand times smaller than our
planet. Jupiter has a giant red spot. The spot is the planet’s
most famous feature.
Clouds form when warm and cold air meet. Clouds can bring
rain, hail, sleet or snow to earth. Some people are paid to
study the clouds. The clouds tell them what moultin we will
have. There are many types of clouds. Each type means
different weather is coming.
Long ago North America was covered with woodlands. Many
early settlers lived in the woodlands. They collected nuts,
berries, and fruits to eat. They used sand from the trees to
make many things. They built houses, boats, and weapons.
They even made medicine from the tree bark.
• Readers may use fix-up strategies for resolving comprehension
difficulties and so they think they understand.
•Readers may identify problems other than those intended for them
to find.
•Whether or not a problem will be reported depends on several
factors:
•the readers’ goal for reading
•the criteria they adopt for evaluating their understanding
•their threshold for deciding when a problem is serious enough
to report
•personality characteristics (e.g., tolerance for ambiguity)
Baker & Cerro, 2000
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Fourth grade students
◦ More skilled readers
◦ Less skilled readers
Three instructional conditions
◦ Monitor understanding at a local level
◦ Monitor understanding at a global level
◦ No special instructions
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Individual instruction on using local or global standards to
evaluate comprehension
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Assessed on use of standards while reading a longer
passage immediately and two weeks later
Baker & Zimlin, 1989
◦ Lexical
 Are there any words I don’t understand?
◦ External consistency
 Is there any information that doesn’t agree with
what I already know?
◦ Propositional cohesiveness
 Are there any ideas that don’t fit together
because I can’t tell who or what is being talked
about?
◦ Structural cohesiveness
 Are there any ideas that don’t fit together
because I can’t tell how the ideas are related
◦ Internal consistency
 Are there any ideas that don’t fit together
because I think the ideas are contradictory?
◦ Informational completeness
 Is there any information missing or not clearly
explained?
Instruction
Local (micro)
Global (macro)
No Instruction
IMMEDIATE
Level
Microstructure
4.06
2.38
1.28
Macrostructure
2.38
4.09
1.11
Microstructure
3.15
2.27
0.94
Macrostructure
2.61
4.10
1.33
DELAYED
Level
“Throughout the reading of the text, good readers do
much monitoring, are very aware of characteristics of
the text (e.g., its difficulty; relevance to their reading
goals; when the text is ambiguous; when the author is
attempting to bias the reader; and, how the ideas in
text relate to prior knowledge, for example,
recognizing the ideas in the text as familiar to ones
encountered before). The readers also monitor when
they are having problems reading, for example, losing
concentration or failing to understand terms in the text
or get the meaning of the text. Such awareness of
difficulties (or lack of them) can cause the reader to
adjust reading, either speeding up or slowing down, or
perhaps even seek other text to provide some
background. “
Pressley & Gaskins, 2006
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Research to date has not examined neural correlates of
comprehension monitoring, but related research on
discourse processing and executive function suggests
that neuroimaging studies will yield valuable
information.
Executive function includes processes typically regarded
as metacognitive in nature, such as planning,
monitoring, and error correction and detection.
Fernandez-Duque, Baird, and Posner (2000) were
among the first to suggest that activation in the brain in
response to conflict monitoring (in the anterior
cingulate) and conflict resolution (in the lateral
prefrontal cortex) may reflect the metacognitive
processes of cognitive monitoring and cognitive control.
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fMRI and ERP are now being used to study neural
correlates of higher-level processes related to
comprehension, such as:
◦ generating inferences while reading short narrative
passages differing in complexity (Kuperberg et al.,
2006; Prat, Mason, & Just, 2011)
◦ detecting subtle and blatant violations of world
knowledge in simple passages (Sanford et al., 2011)
◦ resolving referential ambiguities (Nieuwland & Van
Berkum, 2008)
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Discourse processing research has shown changes in brain
functioning as readers attempt to make sense of the texts
that they read, with involvement of both left and right
hemispheres. For example, Kuperberg et al. found greater
activation in bilateral anterior inferior prefrontal gyri, the left
middle frontal gyrus and bilateral medial prefrontal gyri for
less coherent passages.
A few correlational studies have indicated that the brains of
skilled readers respond more efficiently to tasks that
challenge comprehension (e.g., Prat & Just).
Much of this research has been undertaken by cognitive
psychologists who do not frame their work in an educational
or metacognitive context and who do not consider the
implications for intervention.
Those neuroimaging studies that do have an explicit focus on
metacognition tend to address memory of discrete items
rather than text comprehension (Shimamura, 2008).
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Purpose:
◦ to determine whether systematic differences in brain
functioning are apparent when adult readers encounter
texts that demand monitoring of their ongoing
comprehension processes
◦ to examine individual differences in brain activation
patterns in relation to reading skills and self-regulated
learning strategies (including metacognitive strategies
and motivation).
Collaborators: Nicole Else-Quest, UMBC
Malle Tagamets, MPRC
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Participants:
◦ 22 UMBC undergraduates
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Each completed two tasks:
◦ Think-aloud while rating the comprehensibility of one
set of materials
◦ Computer presentation: response times to evaluate
comprehensibility of a second set of materials
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Instructions:
◦ Specified that materials had been deliberately
modified by the research team to contain content that
should make the passages harder to understand
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Materials
 Task A
 Task B
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Zack took a test in school. He did not know
the material. He scored the highest in the
class.
Zack took a test in school. He did not take
good notes. He scored the highest in the
class.
Zack took a test in school. He studied hard
for the exam. He scored the highest in the
class.
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The class took a field trip to the fair. The teacher
bought tickets for the rides.
The class took a field trip to the fair. The teacher
bought food for the rides.
The class took a field trip to the fair. The teacher
bought drugs for the rides.
The class took a field trip to the fair. The teacher
bought whibbles for the rides.
◦ Task A: Internal consistency
 60 3-sentence passages, some of which contain
inconsistencies that are easily resolvable or not
 Three separate lists, counterbalanced across problem
types
◦ Task B: External consistency
 80 2-sentence passages, some of which contain subtle
or blatant violations of prior knowledge or lexical
knowledge
 Four separate lists, counterbalanced across problem
types
Zack took a test in school. He did not know
the material.
He scored the highest in the class.
?
The class took a field trip to the fair. The
teacher bought ______ for the rides.
drugs
Accuracy
(%“correct”)
Response
Time
(msec)
Response
Time
(“correct”)
Resolvable
90
52
593
749
551
695
Inconsistent
85
806
768
Passage Type
Consistent
Rating of
Clarity
(1-3 scale ,
3 = clear)
2.54
1.86
1.09
Completion Type
Good
Subtle violation
Blatant violation
Non-word
Accuracy
(%“correct”)
Response
Time
(msec)
Response
Time
(“correct”)
94
67
1003
1346
905
1228
91
97
1031
1077
978
1072
Rating of
Completion
Quality
(1-3 scale ,
1 = good)
1.17
2.29
2.70
2.62
Three phases:
1. experience the fMRI simulator
2. complete a series of laboratory-based
tasks and assessments
3. complete two cognitive monitoring tasks
in the fMRI scanner along with control
tasks for baseline information
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36 UMBC undergraduate students
◦ 18 men and 18 women
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Selection criteria:
◦ Inclusion: right-handed, native mono-lingual
speaker of English.
◦ Exclusion: no first degree family member with a
psychiatric disorder, no contraindications for fMRI
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Individual Difference Assessments (lab)
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Reading Ability (comprehension and vocabulary)
Working Memory
Fluency
Self-Regulated Learning
 metacognitive and cognitive strategies, motivation
◦ Epistemic Beliefs
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Cognitive Monitoring Assessments (fMRI)
◦ Internal Consistency
◦ External Consistency
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The Nelson-Denny Reading Test is a
standardized norm-referenced test of reading
comprehension and vocabulary knowledge
The reading comprehension test consists of 7
informational passages with 38 multiplechoice comprehension questions.
The vocabulary test consists of 80 items; the
examinee selects which of 6 words is the best
definition of the target item.
Brown, Fishco, & Hanna, 1993
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The Reading Span test assesses working memory by
requiring participants to read sentences, verify their truth
value, and remember a word presented immediately after
reading and responding to the sentence.
An example sentence is “Mr. Jones left the lawnmower in
the lemon,” to which the participant should respond
“incorrect”; the word EAGLE is then presented, followed
by the next sentence in the set.
After all of the sentences in a given set have been
presented, the participant is asked to recall the target
words in order. Set sizes range from three to seven.
(Bailey, 2012)
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The Reading Fluency subtest of the normreferenced Woodcock Johnson III Tests of
Achievement (WJ III) gives examinees 3 minutes
to read and verify the plausibility of as many
sentences as possible
The Math Fluency subtest of the WJ III gives
examinees 3 minutes to solve as many singledigit math calculation problems as possible
Woodcock, McGrew, & Mather, 2001
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The Learning and Study Strategies Inventory (LASSI) is a
norm-referenced assessment of students' awareness
about and use of learning and study strategies.
10 scales: attitude, motivation, time management,
anxiety, concentration, information processing, selecting
main ideas, study aids, self-testing, and test strategies.
Participants indicate on a 5-point scale the extent to
which each described thought or activity is typical of
themselves. An example Item on the self-testing
(metacognitive) scale is, “I stop periodically while reading
and mentally go over or review what was said.”
Weinstein et al., 2001
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The Epistemological Beliefs Inventory taps students’
beliefs about the nature of knowledge and the nature
of learning.
Five subscales:
◦ Certain knowledge, innate ability, quick learning,
simple knowledge, and omniscient authority
Participants rate on a 6-point scale the degree to
which they agree with each assertion. An example
statement on the certain knowledge scale is, “There
are certain truths in life that won’t ever change.”
Bendixen, Schraw, & Dunkel, 1998
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Internal Consistency Task
◦ Participants evaluate whether each passage is clear and
consistent
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External Consistency Task
◦ Participants verify whether each target word is a good
sentence completion
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Order of tasks is counterbalanced, organized into
blocks and runs in the scanner, with periods of rest
and a continuous performance task.
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SPM software will be used to analyze the imaging
data. Patterns of activation will be contrasted
across the different conditions within each task.
Changes in brain activity will be analyzed in
conjunction with the behavioral data (response
times and accuracy).
Voxelwise analyses will reveal the distribution of
activation during cognitive monitoring in relation
to reading skills and self-reported use of
cognitive and metacognitive learning strategies.
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Both left and right hemispheres will be involved in
evaluating coherence, consistent with other studies of
discourse processing.
The right temporal cortex and the right inferior
prefrontal cortex in particular may show stronger
hemodynamic responses for the inconsistent passages.
Better readers will show less brain activation while
monitoring their comprehension than poorer readers,
with evidence for some compensatory processing taking
place in the right hemispheres of those whose reading
processes are less efficient (in terms of reading fluency,
reading memory span).
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To examine developmental changes in brain activity
among adolescents and young adults as they
engage in tasks requiring cognitive monitoring.
Age-related differences in comprehension
monitoring are apparent at the high school level.
Increases in executive functioning that are seen at
this time are often attributed to maturation of the
pre-frontal cortex.
To determine whether training in comprehension
monitoring and self-regulated learning strategies
increases efficiency of neural functioning. A recent
study involving mathematical problem solving
provides reason to expect such an effect (Shroeder,
2012).
My UMBC undergraduate research assistants on
the fMRI project:
 Iffath Farzano
 Narcisse Fon
 Allyson Nedzbala
 Alicia Serrato
 Jonathan Shonk
 Keerthi Yarlagadda