The study examined whether an awareness that semantic organization is beneficial to picture recall ("semantic enhancement") precedes an awareness that certain types of organization are more beneficial than others ("levels of processing"). A series of pilot studies was conducted with kindergarten and adult subjects and a formal experiment was conducted with first, third, and fifth graders. Metamemory judgments were elicited by having subjects judge the relative ease of recalling a 3 x 3 array of pictures according to how it was organized: taxonomic category (semantically), by shape category (physically), or randomly. Actual memory was assessed with an independent list of 16 pictures, whose names were recalled after subjects sorted the list in one of these three ways. Results indicated that while all subjects understood semantic enhancement, only fifth graders and adults understood levels-of-processing. At all ages there was an erroneous metacognition that physical organization results in easier recall than a random one. It was argued that some "meta-awareness" is dependent upon specific memory experiences and not general intellectual development. (Author/JMB)