Not quite as cool as it sounds... It's a take-off on meta-cognition, and simply means thinking about memory. It is often specifically used to refer to knowing what you remember, or don't remember. This is a good thing, and it will improve your life. But really, it shouldn't be called metamemory.

I know that I don't remember what I ate for dinner yesterday (pitiful, I know), and that I do remember what I ate last thanksgiving. I know that I think I know what I ate for dinner the Christmas before last, but I also know that I am prone to high levels of repisodic memory. I know that I won't remember what I ate for lunch today the day after tomorrow.

And that's metamemory for you, folks!

If you want to work on improving your memory, you should find out about Mnemonics, the keyword method, Loci, and your basic memory; LTM, STM, and the sensory memory.

The term metamemory is often used to describe an individual's knowledge of the contents of his or her own memory. The most frequently used example of this is knowing that you don't know something. Researchers have found that when given a two choice test in which subjects can either respond that a) they know the answer to the question or b) they don't know the answer to a question, their reaction times are much shorter for those items they are sure that they don't know (perhaps, for example, What is the name of the largest food market in Kabul?) than those that they might know (e.g. What is the address of the closest coffee shop?).

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