The aim of this study was to examine the relation of the
consensuality of answers in syllogistic reasoning problems to
metacognitive judgments and response times. In two
experiments, participants (N=126) solved syllogistic problems
and made metacognitive judgments (judgment of confidence
in the correctness of the answer and judgment of task
difficulty), after or before solving each problem.
Intraindividual correlation coefficients (Goodman-Kruskal
gamma coefficient) between reasoning accuracy and
metacognitive judgments and between answer consensuality
and metacognitive judgments were computed from the joint
data of both experiments. Mean gamma coefficients were
higher for consensuality than for reasoning accuracy both for
judgments of confidence and judgments of task difficulty.
Also, consensual answers were given more quickly than nonconsensual
answers. The results indicate that reasoners,
instead of monitoring their actual performance, seem to rely
on different type of cues while making metacognitive
judgments in syllogistic reasoning. Both consensuality and its
relation to metacognitive judgments could be the outcome of
processes of the generation of possible answers while solving
syllogistic reasoning problems.
