Discontinuity in cognitive skill

Skill at reading geometrically transformed text improves as a function of practice across pages. A belief in continuity of learning must suppose a proportionate improvement in skill within pages. We tested for continuity of learning by comparing performance within pages with performance between pages, varying timing of text presentation and quantity of text presented for the purpose. Reanalysis of some published data and three new experiments indicated that skill is acquired continuously as a function of practice but is expressed discontinuously. We conjecture that the expression of skill requires perceptual segregation of tasks into task units to which skill is transferred, whereas acquisition of competence occurs as a strict function of practice.     

Attention control and ability level in a complex cognitive skill: Attention shifting and second-language proficiency

In this study, we investigated the relationship between attention control and proficiency in a complex cognitive skill. The participants were English-French bilinguals with varying degrees of second-language (French) proficiency. Proficiency was operationalized as efficiency of lexical access in an animacy judgment task, as reflected in the coefficient of variability of response time adjusted for first-language performance on the same task. Attention control was operationalized as the shift cost obtained in a linguistic version of the alternating runs task-switching paradigm. Hierarchical regression revealed that, overall, attention control accounted for 59% of the variance of proficiency and that second-language attention control alone accounted for 32% of the unique variance of proficiency, indicating a high degree of skill domain (second language) specificity in the relationship between attention control and proficiency. The results speak to issues regarding the development of expertise, second-language acquisition, and a cognitive linguistic approach to language and attention.     

Analogy as relational priming: a developmental and computational perspective on the origins of a complex cognitive skill

The development of analogical reasoning has traditionally been understood in terms of theories of adult competence. This approach emphasizes structured representations and structure mapping. In contrast, we argue that by taking a developmental perspective, analogical reasoning can be viewed as the product of a substantially different cognitive ability - relational priming. To illustrate this, we present a computational (here connectionist) account where analogy arises gradually as a by-product of pattern completion in a recurrent network. Initial exposure to a situation primes a relation that can then be applied to a novel situation to make an analogy. Relations are represented as transformations between states. The network exhibits behaviors consistent with a broad range of key phenomena from the developmental literature, lending support to the appropriateness of this approach (using low-level cognitive mechanisms) for investigating a domain that has normally been the preserve of high-level models. Furthermore, we present an additional simulation that integrates the relational priming mechanism with deliberative controlled use of inhibition to demonstrate how the framework can be extended to complex analogical reasoning, such as the data from explicit mapping studies in the literature on adults. This account highlights how taking a developmental perspective constrains the theory construction and cognitive modeling processes in a way that differs substantially from that based purely on adult studies, and illustrates how a putative complex cognitive skill can emerge out of a simple mechanism.     

Strategy execution in cognitive skill learning: an item-level test of candidate models

This article investigates the transition to memory-based performance that commonly occurs with practice on tasks that initially require use of a multistep algorithm. In an alphabet arithmetic task, item response times exhibited pronounced step-function decreases after moderate practice that were uniquely predicted by T. C. Rickard's (1997) component power laws model. The results challenge parallel strategy execution models as developed to date and they demonstrate that the shift to retrieval is an item-specific, as opposed to task-general, learning phenomenon. The results also call into question the entire class of smooth speed-up functions as global empirical learning laws. It is shown that overlaying of averaged item fits on averaged data can provide a sensitive test for model sufficiency. Strategy probes agreed with strategy inferences that were based on step-function speed-up patterns, supporting the validity of the probing technique.     

Emotion enhanced retention of cognitive skill learning

Ample evidence suggests that emotional arousal enhances declarative/episodic memory. By contrast, there is little evidence that emotional enhancement of memory (EEM) extends to procedural skill based memory. We examined remote EEM (1.5-month delay) for cognitive skill learning using the weather prediction (WP) probabilistic classification task. Participants viewed interleaved emotionally arousing or neutral pictures during WP acquisition. Arousal retarded initial WP acquisition. While participants in the neutral condition showed substantial forgetting of WP learning across the 1.5-month delay interval, the arousal condition showed no evidence of forgetting across the same time period. Thus, arousal during encoding determined the mnemonic fate of cognitive skill learning. Emotional enhancement of WP retention was independent of verbally stated knowledge of WP learning and EEM for the picture contexts in which learning took place. These results reveal a novel demonstration of EEM for cognitive skill learning, and suggest that emotional arousal may in parallel enhance the neural systems that support procedural learning and its declarative context.     

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.     

Priming arithmetic reasoning in an amnesic patient

The present study elucidates the role of implicit memory in problem solving by evaluating priming effects in a severely amnesic patient. An arithmetic series completion task was adopted to investigate the effects of lags, of items difficulty, as well as the influence of different distractor tasks on priming numerical reasoning. The results indicated that the priming effect was maximized in difficult trials and disappeared after long lags. On the other hand, the facilitation effect was not modulated by the nature of the distractor tasks. Critically, the experimental design controlled for peripheral facilitation of visual input and verbal output processes and a recognition task indicated that the effect may not be attributed to explicit memory. Thus, the facilitation must be located to a more central stage, possibly at the stage in which the abstract formula of the underlying algorithm are generated (Langdon & Warrington, 1997).     

Analysis of cycling skill: A cognitive approach

Riding a bicycle can be considered as a combination of perceptual-motor and cognitive tasks. The task is divided into three functional levels: control, manoeuvring and strategic. Relevant (cognitive) abilities at the first two levels must be acquired and automatized through extensive experience. The processes which are not yet automatized may claim attention and will, therefore, interfere with other processes demanding attention. In this experiment, subjects of various ages and bicycling experience participated. The hypothesis was verified that novice cyclists cannot accomplish traffic-relevant cognitive tasks while they ride a bicycle; possible countermeasures were discussed.     

Temporal tuning in the acquisition of cognitive skill

Thetemporal tuning hypothesis suggests that individuals adjust the timing of cognitive performances to achieve temporal coordination of mental processes and the data on which they operate, and that this adjustment becomes more precise with practice. Participants in two experiments performed self-paced multiple-step arithmetic tasks in which the information needed for each step was briefly displayed at the participants’ request. Timing constraints were manipulated by varying between subjects the delay between requests and displays of information. In Experiment 1, both operators and operands appeared step by step, and participants achieved a modest degree of temporal adjustment that did not change with practice. In Experiment 2, participants could preview operators while operands appeared step by step. In that experiment, participants achieved more precise temporal adjustment, and the amount of adjustment increased with practice. These results demonstrate the phenomenon of temporal tuning in symbolic cognitive skills and suggest some constraints on the ability to anticipate the time course of one’s mental processes.     

Learning a complex motor skill from video and point-light demonstrations

The aim of this study was to compare the learning process of a highly complex ballet skill following demonstrations of point-light and video models. 16 participants divided into point-light and video groups (ns = 8) performed 160 trials of a pirouette, equally distributed in blocks of 20 trials, alternating periods of demonstration and practice, with a retention test a day later. Measures of head and trunk oscillation, coordination disparity from the model, and movement time difference showed similarities between video and point-light groups; ballet experts' evaluations indicated superiority of performance in the video over the point-light group. Results are discussed in terms of the task requirements of dissociation between head and trunk rotations, focusing on the hypothesis of sufficiency and higher relevance of information contained in biological motion models applied to learning of complex motor skills.     

Acquisition of expertise on a difficult perceptual-motor task by an amnesic patient

While numerous studies have reported learning of perceptual-motor skills by amnesic patients, few if any have documented the eventual acquisition of expertise on a given task. This paper recounts the learning of the computer game Tetris by a hippocampal amnesic, whose acquisition of the task in a formal evaluation was somewhat slower than that of a comparison group, but who after many hours of self-paced practice achieved expert-level play.     

Toward a generalized theory of the shift to retrieval in cognitive skill learning

Prior research on cognitive skill learning has shown that algorithmic and direct memory retrieval strategies are not executed in parallel if the algorithm entails a series of long-term memory (LTM) retrieval steps (as in the case, for example, of mental arithmetic). This phenomenon has been hypothesized to reflect a bottleneck in LTM retrieval processes that forces a strategy choice during an early stage of processing. Here, we investigate simple perceptual–motor algorithms that involve no memory retrieval steps, a largely unexplored case in which parallel strategy execution models remain viable. Pronounced strategy interference was again observed, albeit interference that was different in important respects from that observed for LTM retrieval algorithms. It appears that neither parallel nor choice models, as developed to date, are sufficient as a generalized theory of this skill learning phenomenon. Issues central to the development of a more comprehensive theory are discussed.     

Attention in performance of a complex skill by retarded children.

Try materials were used to train 9 retarded children to attend to differences in colors and shapes of objects, and Frostig worksheets were used to train the children to attend to left-to-right directionality. Evidence suggests Ss' ability to attend to these characteristics was generalized to a complex bead-stringing task on which significant gains in performance were found immediately after 15 days of practice with training materials and after a 6-mo. interval of no further training or practice.