EFFECT OF PRACTICE ON UTILIZATION OF NON-LINEAR RULES IN INFERENCE TASKS

The effects of practice on subjects' ability to use nonlinear rules was investigated in five experiments. The first experiment showed that performance and transfer varied with the amount of practice given, the second that having to produce overt responses in training did not lead to better performance or transfer. The third and fourth experiment tested the hypothesis that the low transfer effects were due to interference, but since neither switching the order of test tasks nor an interpolated task affected performance, the hypothesis was rejected. The fifth experiment, finally, showed that practice decreased the nonsystematic error in the subjects' response systems, but did not affect the systematic features. Copyright © 1979, Wiley Blackwell. All rights reserved