In this same study, participants were also given the opportunity to get hints about the correct answers during the memory test. A second question researchers had was about who would seek out the hints. Every participant took a measurement that of their metacognitive ability. Metacognitive ability describes where you know what you know, and whether you know what you don't know.

The variable "gen_gamma" represents metacognitive ability. This is a continuous measurement where higher numbers represent higher metacognitive ability.

The researchers also developed a way to measure participants' overall memory for weak words (weakdPrime_0) and for strong words (strongdPrime_0). These variables are continuous measures, where higher numbers represent better memory.