In the pursuit rotor motor task, participants attempted to keep the tip of the wand on the moving target as long as possible.
The speed of the moving dot could be varied (think record player)
The experimenter could choose to provide auditory feedback or not
In the demo above, you use your mouse to track the dot
FYI: the pursuit rotor was one of the tests used to select US pilots in World War II
Word got out and many potential pilots created their own, home made, pursuit rotor devices from a record player and a coin glued to the spinning platter.
Minnesota Twin Study found that identical twins rotor pursuit improved while fraternal twins did not. (See pp. 341-3).
Patients with cerebellar damage took twice as long to trace images (See p. 359))
Scheerer (1963) conducted an experiment where
he
manipulated the salience of a piece of string.
The more
salient it was, the more likely students
were to solve
the problem.
Nearly all students knew they needed string
to
solve the problem. The solution was to tie
the
two sticks together to make them effectively
longer. Picture
When the string was obvious, nearly all solved the problem
Fewer solved the problem when the string was loosely tied to an out-of-date calendar
Fewer still solved the problem when the string was securely tied to another, functional object, the mirror.
Your neighbor's dog is loose, you catch it.
The dog won't obey you.
How do you get it back home?
You are on the third floor of a classroom building. It's on fire and you cannot safely go out the door.
There are thirty students and one instructor in the classroom.
Feedback: knowledge of results improves skill learning
Power law of practice: skills improve quickly early on and more slowly later
Types of Practice (see pp. 336-7))
Massed practice is like cramming.
Spaced practice is when practice is sprea d our over time.
Constant practice uses limited materials and skills.
Variable practice performing skills in wide variety of contexts
Experts
General characteristics of experts
They:
Are unusually perceptive
Discriminate between diagnostic and non-diagnostic
information
Arrange information well
Are self-confident
Are creative
Expertise
Experts know 50,000 things
experts can quickly recognize around 50,000
situations
For example:
chess players
medical diagnosticians
AI is making inroads in this kind of skill learning
In fields where knowledge exceeds 50,000 situations one
of two things can happen:
specialization
Darwin was a naturalist, meaning he studied
nature,
today nature is too large to study as a field
thus
specializations: zoology, botany, microbiology,
entomology, etc.
handbooks
In fields like architecture and law, experts must
learn
how to look information up. Thus, architects and
lawyers
learn where to find the information they
need.
(Have you noticed how lawyers love to have their law books behind them in their advertisements?)
Specific Expertise
Chess
Chase & Simon (1973)
Master chess players only remembered board positions
better
than novices or class A players only when board
positions
were from master's chess games
Master chess player's memory for random board
position
was no better than novices or class A players
(all had poor memory)
shows chunking (meaning that expert chess players interpret the entire board, not the individual pieces) (see p. 341)
Physics
Novices solved problems by working backward
Experts solved problems by working forward
Medical Diagnosis
Obtaining information
Generating hypotheses
Interpreting data
Evaluating hypotheses
Both experts and novices use steps above, but experts
have more
complete database
Gender Differences?
Physical differences between males and females are evident in areas involving strength and speed.
However the picture is less clear with respect to cognitive skills.
Sociocultural constraints play a big role (see p. 343)
However, Hyde, Spelke, and Halpern argue that the cognitive differences between American males and females are small and changing.
Your neighbor's dog is loose, you catch it. The dog won't obey you. How do you get it back home?
If you are wearing a belt, you can fashion a choke collar type of leash.
Get it? Your belt is now a leash.
You are on the third floor of a classroom building. It's on fire and you cannot safely go out the door. There are thirty students and one instructor in the classroom. It's winter. The classroom has windows. How might you safely get out of the classroom.
If many students are wearing jeans or other heavy clothing might they be fashioned into a rope long enough to reach from the classroom to the ground.
Get it? You winter clothes are now links in a clothing rope.
