ABSTRACT
An old saying about men is that they never stop to ask for directions, no matter how lost they actually are. The proverbial “lost man” in this joke is so sure that he knows where he is that it does not occur to him to stop somewhere and ask for directions. The man’s failure can be considered an instance of poor metacognition. To an outside observer, the man is clearly lost, but that is not subjectively salient to our man. Thus, his metacognitive experience is inaccurate. Moreover, because he does not know that he is lost, he does nothing to ameliorate the situation, such as calling and getting new directions. The man has poor metacognitive monitoring skills, and he cannot adequately control his performance.
