GENERATION OF RULES IN COGNITIVE SKILL AQ UISITION

In cognitive skill acquisition it is generally assumed that the decrea se of latencies found during training follows a power function. This i mplies that the higher efficiency of performance found with increasing practice is explained by assuming data-driven, unconscious learning m echanisms. In contrast, some empirical findings within this field sugg est discontinuities. Up to now, the geneses of such discontinuities re mains rather unclear Therefore, the goal of the current experiment was to examine whether discontinuous learning curves indicate the generat ion of a consciously available and more efficient strategy. For this p urpose 30 subjects were trained over 8 practice blocks, followed by tw o transfer blocks. The results show that subjects with discontinuous l earning curves compared to subjects without such discontinuities (a) w ere faster at the end of training, (b) reached in the second transfer block the level of latencies of the last practice block, and (c) after the experiment, verbalized an easier strategy than that given by the instruction. Taken together, these results suggest that indeed discont inuities indicate the generation of an easier, consciously available s trategy. The implications of these results are discussed with respect to their meaning for conscious and unconscious processes within the fi eld of cognitive skill acquisition.