No Generalization of Practice for Nonzero Simple Addition

作者：Campbell Jamie I D^*; Beech Leah C

来源：Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition , 2014, 40(6): 1766-1771.

DOI：10.1037/xlm0000003

• simple addition
• strategies
• transfer of practice

Several types of converging evidence have suggested recently that skilled adults solve very simple addition problems (e.g., 2 + 1, 4 + 2) using a fast, unconscious counting algorithm. These results stand in opposition to the long-held assumption in the cognitive arithmetic literature that such simple addition problems normally are solved by fact retrieval from declarative memory. Here we tested a large sample of diversely skilled and culturally diverse men and women at the University of Saskatchewan and examined multiple categories of simple (1 digit plus 1 digit) addition problems for evidence of generalization of practice, a signature of procedure use. The procedure-based 0 + N = N problems presented clear evidence of generalization (i.e., practicing a subset of 0 + N problems lead to speed-up for a different subset of 0 + N problems), but there was no evidence of such generalization of practice for the nonzero problems, although the experiment had good power to detect small effects. Given that generalization of practice is a basic marker of procedure-based processing, its absence for the nonzero addition problems casts doubt on the compacted counting theory.

• 出版日期2014-11
• 单位Saskatchewan; Saskatoon