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Learning and transfer from a simple dynamic system
Author(s) -
JENSEN EVA
Publication year - 2005
Publication title -
scandinavian journal of psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.743
H-Index - 72
eISSN - 1467-9450
pISSN - 0036-5564
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-9450.2005.00442.x
Subject(s) - task (project management) , psychology , session (web analytics) , transfer of learning , cognitive psychology , negative transfer , population , social psychology , motor learning , transfer (computing) , predator , developmental psychology , predation , computer science , ecology , medicine , pathology , neuroscience , world wide web , first language , biology , management , environmental health , parallel computing , economics
The amount of learning gained from being assisted in completing the task of bringing a predator‐prey system into equilibrium by controlling the predator population was investigated. Learning was explored both by post‐task questioning and by testing for transfer to another predator‐prey task. Participants were 28 undergraduate psychology students, all female. They were randomly and evenly split into an experiment group that was subjected to a learning session with the first task before being tested in the second task, and a control group that only performed the second task. What was most needed in the first task was help in sticking to analytically derived conclusions by resisting “common sense” responses. There was a significant transfer effect on performance to the second task, stemming from learning shown by half the participants in the experiment group. The other half showed hardly any learning. Learning in about half the subjects has proven a stable finding.