ABSTRACT
Much of how our memories affect thinking and behavior occurs out of conscious awareness. Still, we do have conscious insights. There are instances in which we are very much aware of our efforts to remember and, more painfully, instances when we fail to do so. To remember effectively, we need some conscious awareness and control of our own memories. This is metamemory-the awareness of one’s own memory. This refers to both the contents of memory as well as how to control it. There are a number of ways to look at metamemory. First, we examine theories of metamemory, and then we look at a number of phenomena, including our ability to judge when we have learned something or whether we will later remember things that are currently forgotten. We also look at how we know that we don’t know something. After this we look at issues involved in the phenomenology of memory, such as the experience of an act of remembering, and how what we currently know biases what we remember of the past. After this we address the monitoring and control of one’s own memory with prospective memory, which is remembering to do things in the future, and directed forgetting. Finally, we look at how to use what we know about our own memory to improve it, including the use of mnemonics and some people who have exceptional memories.
