page_title: Metamemory
section_title: Feeling of knowing judgments
hierarchical_section_title: Metamemory / Phenomena / Feeling of knowing judgments
context_page_description: Metamemory or Socratic awareness, a type of metacognition, is both the introspective knowledge of one's own memory capabilities and the processes involved in memory self-monitoring. This self-awareness of memory has important implications for how people learn and use memories. When studying, for example, students make judgments of whether they have successfully learned the assigned material and use these decisions, known as "judgments of learning", to allocate study time.
context_section_description: Feeling of Knowing (FOK) judgments refer to the predictions an individual makes of being able to retrieve specific information (i.e., regarding his or her knowledge for a specific subject) and, more specifically, whether that knowledge exists within the person's memory. These judgments are made either prior to the memory target being found or following a failed attempt to locate the target. Consequently, FOK judgments focus not on the actual answer to a question, but rather on whether an individual predicts that he or she does or does not know the answer (high and low FOK ratings respectively). FOK judgments can also be made regarding the likelihood of remembering information later on and have proven to give fairly accurate indications of future memory. An example of FOK is if you can't remember the answer when someone asks you what city you're traveling to, but you feel that you would recognize the name if you saw it on a map of the country.
  An individual's FOK judgments are not necessarily accurate, and attributes of all three metamemory hypotheses are apparent in the factors that influence FOK judgments and their accuracy. For example, a person is more likely to give a higher FOK rating (indicating that they do know the answer) when presented with questions they feel they should know the answer to. This is in keeping with the cue familiarity hypothesis, as the familiarity of the question terms influences the individual's judgment. Partial retrieval also impacts FOK judgments, as proposed by the accessibility hypothesis. The accuracy of an FOK judgment is dependent upon the accuracy of the partial information which is retrieved. Consequently, accurate partial information leads to accurate FOK judgments, while inaccurate partial information leads to inaccurate FOK judgments. FOK judgments are also influenced by the number of memory traces linked to the cue. When a cue is linked to fewer memory traces, resulting in a low level of competition, a higher FOK rating is given, thus supporting the competition hypothesis.
  Certain physiological states can also influence an individual's FOK judgments. Altitude, for instance, has been shown to reduce FOK judgments, despite having no effect on recall. In contrast, alcohol intoxication results in reduced recall while having no effect on FOK judgments.
caption: Feeling Of Knowing example: Even if you cannot remember that the name of the city you are traveling to is Cusco, you may feel that you would recognize the name if shown a map of Peru.
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