DISCRETE DYNAMIC-SYSTEMS - THE IMPACT OF PERCEPTUAL STRUCTURING ON COMPOSITION AND TRANSFER OF KNOWLEDGE ABOUT OPERATING SEQUENCES

This paper reports two experiments in which we explored the impact of perceptual grouping of elements on the organization and use of knowled ge about how to operate a device. Experiment 1 explored the effects of different perceptual display regions on the creation of chunks when s equences of inputs had to be reproduced. The effects of regions were n ot homogeneous, but rather their influence depended on interactions be tween different modalities and learning conditions. Experiment 2 inves tigated the influence of grouping-induced composition of knowledge ele ments on the transfer of sequential knowledge. Two different learning criteria were used in the acquisition phase to manipulate the degree o f composition of knowledge elements. In the transfer phase, subjects c ould transfer (1) the whole sequence of one region, (2) two partial se quences of adjacent regions, or (3) single components. It was found th at regional invariance and immediate succession of components were bot h important for transfer performance. These results suggests that the temporal order of regions is important for the organization and use of sequential knowledge, and not the grouping of elements by itself.