Metamemory and subjective memory experiences in students with learning difficulties

Metamemory refers to the ability to introspect on one own ’s memory processes and report on them. Introspection on internal memory states allows for the investigation of subjective remembering, which reveals essential in adding information on the qualitative aspects of memory, especially in populations of children with learning difficulties. Nonetheless, children with learning difficulties, in particular those with faulty comprehension of conceptual material such as a written text, may show a similar level of memory accuracy than their peers but different abilities at the subjective level; indeed, knowing the subjective experiences associated with memory of a narrative text enhances the relevance that the text itself has for the person and this could have implications for the particular case of those texts, offered at school, which need to be studied and elaborated by the students. If the text is well processed and thus not only well remembered at the objective level (i.e., accuracy) but also subjectively perceived as compelling, then it is more likely that it will be later remembered in more details.The present research was aimed at investigating recognition memory for sentences included in a narrative text and subjective memory experiences related to the text in adolescents with and without learning difficulties. Adolescents (age range: 15-19 years) with learning difficulties were selected based on their performance on a standardized test for text comprehension and on the teachers' evaluations of their school achievement. In a recognition memory paradigm for text (created ad hoc for the purposes of the present experiment), students with learning difficulties (“poor learners”) compared to a control group, showed a lower hit rate for sentences, thus they were less able to recognize whether target sentences appeared in a previously heard narrative. Further, “poor learners” were less likely to associate Remember judgments to the target sentences, whereas both groups associated a similar level of Familiar responses to the old items (Remember-Know paradigm, Tulving, 1985). These results show that students with learning difficulties have a less subjectively compelling memory experience related to a complex text, and thus are less competent at the metamemory level than students without learning difficulties. The results are discussed in terms of their implications in school contexts.