Task Context and Individual Difference Effects on Skill Acquisition of Visual Processing Strategy

Abstract

Pratt and Sohn (2001) suggested that training context impacts those with a holistic strategy while training context does not influence transfer performance for those with an analytic strategy. The present research attempts to compliment and extend their findings by examining the role of complexity and how it interacts with individual differences in visual processing strategy. Participants were given a visual discrimination task in which they trained on one of four stimulus sets that varied in complexity and similarity and then transferred to novel stimuli. Stimulus complexity was defined by the number of points each stimulus had. Stimulus similarity was defined by the six levels of discrimination difficulty. Using methods described by Pratt & Sohn (2001), participant's individual processing strategy was extracted from a screening session prior to training. Participants were categorized as either “analytic” or “holistic” based on their response reaction time as a function of stimulus complexity. Those with an analytic strategy performed with greater accuracy in transfer as complexity level decreased; those with a holistic strategy performed with greater accuracy in transfer as complexity level increased. Graphical design and training techniques are discussed.