Hypercorrection is the higher likelihood of correcting a general knowledge error when originally certain that the information they understand is accurate as opposed to unsure of the information.[1] The phenomenon suggests that once a general knowledge information is confidently misremembered by someone and the person learns the right version after their initial response is corrected, their likelihood of remembering this piece of information will be higher than someone who was unsure of their initial answer. It refers to the finding that when given corrective feedback, errors that are committed with high confidence are easier to correct than low confidence errors.[2]
For example, a student taking a test on state capitals is certain that Pittsburgh is the capital of Pennsylvania. When the test is returned, the answer has been corrected to Harrisburg. Shocked that the answer was incorrect, the student is more likely to make sure to remember the correct answer than the student who was originally unsure about the answer.
The hypercorrection effect explores whether making mistakes early on in the learning process can be beneficial to the learner and their encoding of the material.[3]
Metcalfe 2017 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).