Factors Influencing the Development and Transfer of Automatic Processing

A study was performed to examine the role of consistency in the development and transfer of automatic processing. Subjects performed a rule-based memory search task in which they compared multidimensional probes to either one, two or three memory set rules. Results indicated that learning occurred in the absence of consistency at lower levels of task description (e.g. mappping of individual task components to responses) as long as higher level consistencies existed in the task (e.g. consistent mapping of task components to a conceptual framework). High positive transfer was obtained despite replacement of the exemplars of the memory set rules, suggesting that learning was not specific to the items encountered during training. On the other hand, the magnitude of positive transfer was reduced when the rules were replaced suggesting that most of the learning took place at the level of specific rules. Some evidence was also obtained for more general process-based learning.