Is monitoring in executive functions related to metacognitive monitoring?

Abstract

Executive functions (EF) and metacognition (MC) have so far been investigated separately, yet, on the theoretical level, they share commonalities. It remains unclear whether these skills correlate in young children, and more importantly, whether monitoring processes within each may be associated. Here, we tested 6- to 8-year-old children's (N = 312) EF with the Hearts and Flowers task and MC with a paired associates memory task and focused on monitoring as a potential associated process. We examined children's accuracy and reaction time (RT) in the Hearts and Flowers task, as well as their post-error slowing as an indicator of monitoring. We measured children's accuracy and the latency of their confidence judgments for their answers in the paired associates task as an indicator of explicit and implicit metacognitive monitoring, respectively. Results showed that, for both inhibition and shifting components of EF, there was a significant positive correlation between children's RT in the Hearts and Flowers and the latency of memory monitoring judgments. That is, children who were faster in self-evaluations of their memory performance (i.e., metacognitive monitoring) were also faster in executive functioning. Evidence for the relationship between accuracy in the Hearts and Flowers task and memory monitoring was inconclusive. Post-error slowing was not associated with any measure of memory monitoring. Together, these findings suggest that EF and memory monitoring are rather weakly associated in 6- to 8-year-old children although both can be considered as higher-order cognitive processes. Although children show indications of monitoring within both EF and MC, monitoring is unlikely to explain their link.