ORCID

Abstract

Flexible, adaptive behaviour depends on the application of prior learning to novel contexts (transfer). Transfer can take many forms, but the focus of the present study was on ‘task schemas’ – learning strategies that guide the earliest stages of engaging in a novel task. The central aim was to examine the architecture of task schemas and determine whether strategic task components can expedite learning novel tasks that share some structural components with the training tasks. Groups of participants across two experiments were exposed to different training regimes centred around multiple unique tasks that shared some/all/none of the structural task components (the kinds of stimuli, classifications, and/or responses) but none of the surface features (the specific stimuli, classifications, and/or responses) with the test task (a dot-pattern classification task). Initial test performance was improved (to a degree) in all groups relative to a control group whose training did not include any of the structural components relevant to the test task. The strongest evidence of transfer was found in the motoric, perceptual + categorization, and full schema training groups. This observation indicates that training with some (or all) strategic task components expedited learning of a novel task that shared those components. That is, task schemas were found to be componential and were able to expedite learning a novel task where similar (learning) strategies could be applied to specific elements of the test task.

Publication Date

2024-01-27

Publication Title

Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology

Volume

77

Issue

10

ISSN

1747-0218

Acceptance Date

2023-10-15

Deposit Date

2023-06-11

Embargo Period

2024-01-10

Funding

The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This work was supported by the European Research Council (Grant No. 312445 awarded to Frederick Verbruggen), the Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland (Grant No.RIG008617 awarded to C.S.L.), and the Experimental Psychology Society (Small Research Grant awarded to C.S.L.)

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License

First Page

2000

Last Page

2000

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