INFLUENCE OF THE PREVIOUS STRATEGY ON INDIVIDUALS’ STRATEGY CHOICES

• Authors: Viki Schillemans , Koen Luwel , Patrick Onghena , Lieven Verschaffel
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

The present study provides additional evidence for the recently described perseveration effect (i.e., participants repeat the previous strategy more often than switch to another strategy). The participants’ task was to determine the number of coloured cells in grids by using two possible strategies: an addition strategy (whereby participants add the coloured cells) or a subtraction strategy (whereby they subtract the number of empty cells from the total grid size). The authors used a paradigm in which the different numerosities were presented in three different orders: an ascending order, which started with low-numerosity items (which are known to be solved with the addition strategy) and gradually increased to high-numerosity items (which are known to be solved with the subtraction strategy), a descending order (with the reverse order) and a random order. The hypothesis that participants’ change point (i.e., the numerosity on which they switch from one strategy to the other) would be largest in the ascending order and smallest in the descending order, is confirmed.

Keywords

EN

STRATEGY; STRATEGY CHOICE; NUMEROSITY

• Publisher: Institute of Experimental Psychology, Slovak Academy of Sciences
• Journal: Studia Psychologica
• Year: 2011
• Volume: 53
• Issue: 4
• Pages: 339 – 350

Contributors

author

Viki Schillemans

• Centre for Instructional Psychology and Technology, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Dekenstraat 2, B-3000 Leuven, Belgium

author

Koen Luwel

author

Patrick Onghena

author

Lieven Verschaffel