The term metacognition is complex. This can be summed up in one’s own knowledge, that is, the ability to know and regulate our thinking, including conscious control of cognitive processes, such as memory, attention and understanding.
The study of metacognition began with epistemologist and cognitive psychologist J. Flavell and english anthropologist and psychologist Gregory Bateson, who focused his studies on animal metacognition.
- Metacognition gives us the additional flexibility that characterizes the human mind.
- It is therefore necessary to understand metacognition as knowledge of the second order.
- Having itself as an object.
- That’s why the prefix “meta”.
- This allows us to evaluate executive processes and act accordingly to improve our actions.
An example of metacognition may be the fact that you’re reading a text, and when you make sure you understand it, you realize that the answer is no and you re-read it, or, for example, when you solve one problem, we realize that the strategy we were applying doesn’t work and move on to another.
A fundamental aspect of understanding metacognition in depth is to make it clear that it is a multifaceted concept, we can talk about this concept from two different perspectives, although closely related, one is based on its content and the other takes into account the process involved.
Thus, we differentiate metacognition as metacognitive knowledge and as a metacognitive control, below we will explain each of these perspectives and what they imply, let’s go a little further.
This term refers to what people know about their cognitive processes and those of others in general, so this face of metacognition refers to aspects of content or knowledge itself, it is a declarative knowledge that, for example, we practice when we think of our intellectual abilities, our ability to learn or our ability to remember.
This type of knowledge has the following characteristics
In addition, metacognitive knowledge consists of three main components:
Metacognitive control refers to active supervision, and its consequent regulation and organization, in terms of the processes that operate at any given time, that is, it refers to the ability to be aware of possible failures and act accordingly to reduce them. It is important to note that the metacognitive process is present before, during and after the objective task.
Metacognitive control has the following characteristics
Metacognition is an essential aspect of information processing. In fact, in the vast majority of tasks, we note that metacognitive aspects are present and have significant weight, both in metacognitive knowledge and in metacognitive control. You have to understand that the difference between cognition and metacognition is a very fine line, which leads us to think more about a dimensional aspect than strict categories.
Metacognition research helps us understand human thinking and reasoning, which is extremely important in many other areas, such as clinic or education. After all, understanding how the human mind works helps us improve all the processes associated with it.