Cognitive and Instructional Theories of Impasses in Learning

摘要

This is the final report of a series of experiments designed to study impasses inthe learning of skills with a strong perceptual component. Several series of experiments were designed with the purpose of producing experimentally manipulable impasses or plateaus in the course of learning. Subjects in learning studies identified targets in various complex computer-presented displays. Among the factors manipulated were complexity, noise, salience, biassing instructions, and the distribution of target features across boundaries of displays. Impasses were produced, but patterns of impasse phenomena were not reproduced reliably enough to support of disconfirm a theory of impasses in learning. Keywords: Impasse; Learning impasses; Behavioral; Blocking; Noticing; Spectrograms; Inward/outward projecting masks; Consonant discrimination; Vowel transfer; Feature noticing. (sdw)