Department of Psychology, University of San Francisco.
Graduate School of Education and, Department of Psychology, University of California, Berkeley.
Top Cogn Sci. 2019 Jan;11(1):164-177. doi: 10.1111/tops.12397. Epub 2018 Dec 13.
One's level of surprise can be thought of as a metacognitive signal indicating how well one can explain new information. We discuss literature on how this signal can be used adaptively to build, and, when necessary, reorganize belief networks. We present challenges in the use of a surprise signal, such as hindsight bias and the tendency to equate difficulty with implausibility, and point to evidence suggesting that one can overcome these challenges through consideration of alternative outcomes-especially before receiving feedback on actual outcomes-and by calibrating task difficulty with one's knowledge level. As such, we propose that a major function of education-broadly construed as the work of teachers, journalists, parents, etc.-is to assist learners in using their metacognitive surprise signals to facilitate the building and adaptation of belief networks.
一个人的惊讶程度可以被视为一种元认知信号，表明其能够在多大程度上解释新信息。我们讨论了如何自适应地利用这一信号来构建信念网络，以及在必要时对其进行重组。我们提出了在使用惊讶信号时所面临的挑战，例如后见之明偏差和将困难等同于不可信的倾向，并指出有证据表明，人们可以通过考虑替代结果来克服这些挑战，特别是在收到实际结果的反馈之前，还可以通过将任务难度与自己的知识水平相匹配来进行调整。因此，我们认为教育的主要功能（广义上理解为教师、记者、家长等的工作）是帮助学习者利用其元认知惊讶信号来促进信念网络的构建和适应。
