The role of examples and rules in the acquisition of a cognitive skill

In 3 experiments, participants memorized 8 examples, each exemplifying a different rule. Participants were asked to extend these rules to new examples. They practiced applications of the rules to examples over a period of 4 days (Experiment 1) or 5 days (Experiments 2 and 3). Although these rules were bidirectional, an asymmetry gradually built up such that participants became more facile in using the rules in the practiced direction. Participants also showed an advantage when the initial study example was repeated or when test examples were repeated. It is argued that skill acquisition involves development of a complex set of strategies based on use of rules and retrieval of examples. Four overlapping stages of skill acquisition are described.     

Age-related differences in the course of cognitive skill acquisition: The role of regional cortical shrinkage and cognitive resources.

This study examined the impact of age-related differences in regional cerebral volumes and cognitive resources on acquisition of a cognitive skill. Volumes of brain regions were measured on magnetic resonance images of healthy adults (aged 22-80). At the early stage of learning to solve the Tower of Hanoi puzzle, speed and efficiency were associated with age, prefrontal cortex volume, and working memory. A similar pattern of brain-behavior associations was observed with perseveration measured on the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test. None of the examined structural brain variables were important at the later stages of skill acquisition. When hypertensive participants were excluded, the effect of prefrontal shrinkage on executive aspects of performance was no longer significant, but the effect of working memory remained. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Striatal activation during acquisition of a cognitive skill.

The striatum is thought to play an essential role in the acquisition of a wide range of motor, perceptual, and cognitive skills, but neuroimaging has not yet demonstrated striatal activation during nonmotor skill learning. Functional magnetic resonance imaging was performed while participants learned probabilistic classification, a cognitive task known to rely on procedural memory early in learning and declarative memory later in learning. Multiple brain regions were active during probabilistic classification compared with a perceptual-motor control task, including bilateral frontal cortices, occipital cortex, and the right caudate nucleus in the striatum. The left hippocampus was less active bilaterally during probabilistic classification than during the control task, and the time course of this hippocampal deactivation paralleled the expected involvement of medial temporal structures based on behavioral studies of amnesic patients. Findings provide initial evidence for the role of frontostriatal systems in normal cognitive skill learning. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Loss of cognitive skill across delays: Constraints for theories of cognitive skill acquisition.

Mastering a cognitive skill requires many practice sessions, occurring over a period of days, weeks, months, or even years. Although a large body of research describes and explains gains made within a given practice session, few studies have investigated what happens to these gains across a delay, and none have examined effects of delays on item-general gains. Across 3 experiments, participants performed alphabet arithmetic verification in an initial practice session followed by a test session after a delay (from 0 to 30 days). All experiments included conditions yielding item-general practice gains; Experiments 2–3 also included an item-specific practice condition. Surprisingly, item-general gains were relatively well preserved across a delay (e.g., only 6.7% decrease in practice effects after 2 days), whereas item-specific gains showed sizeable losses across a delay (e.g., 25.9% loss after 2 days). Results provide important empirical constraints to theories of cognitive skill acquisition. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Cognitive skill acquisition and transfer in younger and older adults.

The acquisition of cognitive skills often depends on 1 of (or a combination of) 2 processes, the execution of an algorithm, and the retrieval of problem instances. This study examined the effects of age and repetition of problem instances on the production and verification of solutions to 2 serially presented sets of alphabet arithmetic problems. Analyses of the parameters derived from power-function fits for individuals revealed age differences favoring young adults in improvement span, learning rate, and asymptote. For both age groups, the beneficial effects of repetitions on 1st-set response times were attributable to algorithmic speedup and to the retrieval of instances, whereas improvements in the speed of 2nd-set response times were attributable primarily to item retrieval. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The cognitive skill of teaching.

Characterizes teaching as a complex cognitive skill amenable to analysis in a manner similar to other skills described by cognitive psychology. A formal model of the process of instruction in elementary mathematics is presented and examined in light of empirical data from 8 expert and 4 novice teachers. The model's perspective is that teaching skill rests on 2 fundamental knowledge systems: lesson structure and subject matter. Instructional segments were analyzed to clarify the nature of instructional action and goal systems that support competence. The expert teachers were shown to be characterized by use of well-practiced routines, effective application of guided or monitored practice, methods of obtaining feedback on the performance of all children, and efficient presentation of material. Analyses of specific teaching episodes are presented. (23 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

An investigation of the role of working memory in procedural skill acquisition.

On the basis of the ACT* production system theory of skill acquisition (Anderson, 1983a, 1987), I generated predictions concerning the role of two proposed classes of working-memory limitations in procedural learning. Individual differences analyses of a laboratory procedural learning task tested these predictions. As hypothesized, measures of controlled attention in working memory predicted initial declarative rule acquisition and proceduralization, and measures of automatic activation in working memory predicted indexes of later production composition and strengthening. Results supported a distinction between two working-memory capacity constructs that impose unique limits on processes of skill acquisition. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Knowledge structures and the acquisition of a complex skill.

The purpose of this study was to examine the viability of knowledge structures as an operationalization of learning in the context of a task that required a high degree of skill. Over the course of 3 days, 86 men participated in 9 training sessions and learned a complex video game. At the end of acquisition, participants' knowledge structures were assessed. After a 4-day nonpractice interval, trainees completed tests of skill retention and skill transfer. Findings indicated that the similarity of trainees' knowledge structures to an expert structure was correlated with skill acquisition and was predictive of skill retention and skill transfer. However, the magnitude of these effects was dependent on the method used to derive the expert referent structure. Moreover, knowledge structures mediated the relationship between general cognitive ability and skill-based performance. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Determinants of individual differences during skill acquisition: Cognitive abilities and information processing.

An integrative theory that links general models of skill acquisition with ability determinants of individual differences in performance is presented. Three major patterns of individual differences during skill acquisition are considered: changes in between-subjects variability, the simplex pattern of trial intercorrelations, and changing ability–performance correlations with practice. In addition to a review of previous theory and data, eight experimental manipulations are used to evaluate the cognitive ability demands associated with different levels of information-processing complexity and consistency. Subjects practiced category word search, spatial figure, and choice reaction time tasks over several hundred trials of task practice. An air traffic controller simulation was used to show generalization to a complex task. Examinations of practice-related between-subjects variance changes and ability–performance correlations are used to demonstrate that an equivalence exists between three broad phases of skill acquisition and three cognitive–intellectual determinants of individual differences. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The nature of phonological processing and its causal role in the acquisition of reading skills.

Three bodies of research that have developed in relative isolation center on each of three kinds of phonological processing: phonological awareness, awareness of the sound structure of language; phonological recoding in lexical access, recoding written symbols into a sound-based representational system to get from the written word to its lexical referent; and phonetic recoding in working memory, recoding written symbols into a sound-based representation system to maintain them efficiently in working memory. In this review we integrate these bodies of research and address the interdependent issues of the nature of phonological abilities and their causal roles in the acquisition of reading skills. Our review supports a causal role for phonological awareness in learning to read, and suggests the possibility of similar causal roles for phonological recoding in lexical access and phonetic recoding in working memory. Most researchers have neglected the probable causal role of learning to read in the development of phonological skills. It is no longer enough to ask whether phonological skills play a causal role in the acquisition of reading skills. The question now is which aspects of phonological processing (e.g., awareness, recoding in lexical access, recoding in working memory) are causally related to which aspects of reading (e.g., word recognition, word analysis, sentence comprehension), at which point in their codevelopment, and what are the directions of these causal relations? (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Memory for order of operations in the acquisition and transfer of sequential cognitive skills.

The authors report a series of experiments in which questions about the nature of memory for the order of processing operations in sequential processing skills (i.e., skills that require proper sequencing of a set of component operations) were addressed. Evidence from 3 studies of a sequential number computation skill suggested that memory for processing sequences that are general to many instances is more instrumental than sequence memory that is instance specific. Results generalized over task versions that differed markedly in the number of processing sequences and the number of unique stimulus instances per sequences. General sequence memory appeared to develop relatively early in practice and to underlie errors in transfer that resembled einstellung effects. The findings are discussed with respect to memory mechanisms postulated in recent theories of skill acquisition. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Motivation and cognitive abilities: An integrative/aptitude-treatment interaction approach to skill acquisition.

Two central constructs of applied psychology, motivation and cognitive ability, were integrated within an information-processing (IPR) framework. This framework simultaneously considers individual differences in cognitive abilities, self-regulatory processes of motivation, and IPR demands. Evidence for the framework is provided in the context of skill acquisition, in which IPR and ability demands change as a function of practice, training paradigm, and timing of goal setting (GS). Three field-based lab experiments were conducted with 1,010 US Air Force trainees. Exp 1 evaluated the basic ability–performance parameters of the air traffic controller task and GS effects early in practice. Exp 2 evaluated GS later in practice. Exp 3 investigated the simultaneous effects of training content, GS and ability–performance interactions. Results support the theoretical framework and have implications for notions of ability–motivation interactions and design of training and motivation programs. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Configural response learning: The acquisition of a nonpredictive motor skill.

This study examined the representational nature of configural response learning using a task that required simultaneous keypresses with 2 or 3 fingers, similar to the production of chords on the piano. If the benefits of learning are related to the retrieval of individual stimulus-response mappings, performance should depend on the frequencies of the individual responses forming each chord. Alternatively, learning may involve the encoding of configural information concerning the relationship between the chord elements. In Experiment 1, training was restricted to a subset of the 120 possible 3-element chords. Probe blocks included the practiced chords, chords composed of novel configurations of practiced elements (reconfigured), and chords that contained a new element (new). Practiced chords were performed faster than reconfigured chords, indicating learning involves the encoding of configural information. Experiment 2 showed that learning was not restricted to configurations within each hand. Experiments 3 and 4 demonstrated that learning was largely response based. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The role of cognitive and affective processing in a transgenic mouse model of cortical-limbic neuropotentiated compulsive behavior.

Obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) may involve abnormal cortical-limbic processing or responsiveness. Mice with behaviors resembling the symptoms of OCD and related disorders were made by expression of a neuropotentiating cholera toxin (CT) transgene in cortical-limbic D1 receptor-expressing neurons. Because these D1CT mice express CT in the piriform cortex and amygdala (major cognitive and affective olfactory processing areas) it was tested whether abnormal odor perception, discrimination, or responsiveness facilitates their compulsion-like behavior. The mice exhibited normal olfactory discriminative capability. An anxiogenic odor potentiated their abnormal repetitive leaping, but novel or familiar nonthreatening odors did not. These data suggest that compulsions can be triggered not by impaired cortical-limbic processing but by increased cortical-limbic responsiveness, particularly to sensory or cognitive stimuli with affective properties. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

On the whats and hows of retrieval in the acquisition of a simple skill.

Two general views on the role of memory in cognitive skills—an instance-based theory and an associative perspective—were compared with respect to their general assumptions about the information involved and the processes that operate on that information. Characteristics of memory information were examined in terms of predictions for transfer to various stimulus forms as a function of 2 types of learning conditions. Characteristics of memory processes were examined using a set of general process models. Results of 4 experiments indicate that (a) neither theoretical perspective was capable of accounting for all the observed transfer effects, indicating needed refinements to informational assumptions, and that (b) 1 class of process assumptions was consistently supported, whereas other classes were consistently contradicted, indicating a general set of process characteristics that can be used in further model development. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The acquisition of robust and flexible cognitive skills.

The authors introduce a model of skill acquisition that incorporates elements of both traditional models and models based on embedded cognition by striking a balance between top-down and bottom-up control. A knowledge representation is used in which pre- and postconditions are attached to actions. This model captures improved performance due to learning not only in terms of shorter solution times and lower error rates during the task but also in an increased flexibility to solve similar problems and robustness against unexpected events. In 3 experiments using a complex aviation task, the authors contrasted instructions that explicitly stated pre- and postconditions with conventional instructions that did not. The instructions with pre- and postconditions led to better and more robust performance than other instructions, especially on problems that required transfer. The parameters of the model were estimated to obtain a quantitative fit of the results of Experiment 1, which was then successfully used to predict the results of Experiments 2 and 3. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Training strategies for attaining transfer of problem-solving skill in statistics: A cognitive-load approach.

Studied the differential effect on training performance, transfer performance, and cognitive load for 3 computer-based training strategies. The conventional, worked, and completion conditions emphasized, respectively, the solving of conventional problems, the study of worked-out problems, and the completion of partly worked-out problems. The relation between practice-problem type and transfer was expected to be mediated by cognitive load. It was hypothesized that practice with conventional problems would require more time and more effort during training and result in lower and more effort-demanding transfer performance than practice with worked-out or partly worked-out problems. With the exception of time and effort during training, the results supported the hypothesis. The completion strategy and, in particular, the worked strategy proved to be superior to the conventional strategy for attaining transfer. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Predicting self-efficacy and performance during skill acquisition.

Ss completed 7 trials of a complex computer task that simulated the job of an air traffic controller. Performance was calculated by combining points for the number of planes landed minus penalty points. Throughout the trials, Ss completed questionnaires assessing their self-efficacy goals, expected performance, and the degree to which certain judgments required more or less cognitive processing. The results show that during skill acquisition people report reductions in their cognitive processing for working on the task and for making self-efficacy judgments. Also, on early trials, self-efficacy is a better predictor of performance than are expected score or goals, whereas the reverse is true for later trials. The discussion focuses on understanding motivational processes during skill acquisition. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Dual learning processes in interactive skill acquisition.

Acquisition of interactive skills involves the use of internal and external cues. Experiment 1 showed that when actions were interdependent, learning was effective with and without external cues in the single-task condition but was effective only with the presence of external cues in the dual-task condition. In the dual-task condition, actions closer to the feedback were learned faster than actions farther away but this difference was reversed in the single-task condition. Experiment 2 tested how knowledge acquired in single and dual-task conditions would transfer to a new reward structure. Results confirmed the two forms of learning mediated by the secondary task: A declarative memory encoding process that simultaneously assigned credits to actions and a reinforcement-learning process that slowly propagated credits backward from the feedback. The results showed that both forms of learning were engaged during training, but only at the response selection stage, one form of knowledge may dominate over the other depending on the availability of attentional resources. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Aging and skill acquisition: Learning-performance distinctions.

This research examined the hypothesis that a conservative response bias in older persons interferes with the acquisition and mastery of cognitive skill. Twenty younger and 20 older Ss performed both consistent mapping and varied mapping versions of a memory search task. Half of the Ss in each group performed under speed stress instructions, whereas the remaining Ss performed under accuracy stress instructions. Older Ss exhibited less skilled performance than did younger Ss. A power function analysis attributed this to both age-related differences in the rate of associative learning and differences in asymptotic levels of performance. These results are at odds with A. D. Fisk and W. A. Rogers's (1991) hypothesis that age-related differences in automatization do not occur in memory search tasks. Results are interpreted in terms of a learning vs performance distinction. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)