Olfactory Metacognition : A Metamemory Perspective on Odor Naming

Although many aspects of odor naming have received attention during the years, the participants' own cognitions (metamemory) about their naming attempts have not. (i) We showed that feeling of knowing (FOK) judgments accompanying odor naming failures are predictive of later recognition (Study I) or retrieval (Study III) of the missing name, but to a lesser degree than equivalent judgments about names of persons. “Tip of the nose” (TON) experiences do predict later odor name recall (Study I), but are otherwise poorly related to any partial activation of other information associated with the odor. (ii) We evaluated two theories proposed to explain the underlying basis of FOK judgments. Correlational analysis showed that FOK judgments about odor names are related to the perceived familiarity of the cue triggering the FOK (cue familiarity theory; Study III). FOK judgments are based on the amount of available information about the sought-for memory (accessibility theory; Study I and III). (iii) We demonstrated that the participants are overconfident in their odor naming attempts (Study I and II). This may to some degree be due to the arousing properties of the odors (Study II), suggesting that emotional variables should be taken into account when researching metamemory. (iv) Our inability to correctly name odors are typically not due to an uniquely poor association between odors and their proper names, but rather due to failures to identify the odors (Study III), that is, failures to retrieve “what it is”. It was also found that TOT experiences are unusual for odor names and more so than for person names. (v) We discuss potential differences between olfactory metamemory and metamemory for other modalities. The TON experience differs from the tip of the tongue (TOT) experience and the predictive validity is lower for metamemory judgments about odor names compared to other modalities