Abstract
Little is known about what exactly differentiates metacognitive processes from ordinary cognitive processes particularly early in development, and the underlying developmental aspects. To examine the time-course of metacognition, the present study investigated the neural underpinnings of judgments of learning (JoLs) and compared them with control judgments, using an event-related potentials (ERP) design. During ERP recording, children age seven to eight were presented with cue-target picture pairs and instructed to learn these pairs. After each pair, they either had to make a JoL (assess the likelihood of remembering the target when only presented with the cue) or a colour judgment (indicate whether the colour yellow had been present in one of the two pictures presented earlier). Results revealed a late slow wave divergence maximal pronounced from 550ms to 950ms post-stimulus that distinguished between JOLs and colour judgments. Over centro-parietal areas, JoLs showed a more negative going slow wave compared to the colour judgments, and this pattern was independent of performance. The results are in support of theories that assume a distinction between metacognitive and cognitive processes.
