ON THE COGNITIVE STRUCTURE OF BASIC ARITHMETIC SKILLS - OPERATION, ORDER, AND SYMBOL TRANSFER EFFECTS

In 2 experiments, college Ss practiced extensively on single-digit mul tiplication and division problems (e.g., }}}} = 6 x 9; 42 = }}}} x 6) and were tested on both practice problems and several altered versions of those problems, which were constructed by changing the required op eration, operand order, or arithmetic symbol. There was strong positiv e transfer to test problems that had exactly the same elements (the nu mbers and the required operation) as a practice problem, regardless of whether other factors such as operand order or symbol were changed, b ut little if any positive transfer to test problems that did not have the same elements as a practice problem. An identical elements framewo rk is used to interpret these results and implications for existing co mputational models of arithmetic fact retrieval and for the developmen t of arithmetic skill are discussed.