Concept identification as a function of task complexity and distribution of practice.

Concept identification using simultaneous auditory and visual signals.

“…The significant interactions of visual information and halves of the task indicate that the rate of learning decreases as the amount of irrelevant visual information increases. This is consistent with a significant interaction between trials and irrelevant visual information found by Brown and Archer (1956).…”

“…These studies differed with respect to other independent variables studied, but each showed that increases in irrelevant information caused significant increases in the difficulty of the task. Bourne (1957), Bourne and Pendleton (1958), and Brown and Archer (1956) all found amount of irrelevant information (in bits) in problems of this type increases the difficulty of the task in a linear manner within the limits studied. Moreover, this effect holds over a number of minor variations in procedure.…”

“…Among the variables affecting performance in concept identification tasks, the amount of irrelevant information in the stimuli has been most often studied. Archer, Bourne, and Brown (1955), Bourne (1957), Bourne and Pendleton (1958), and Brown and Archer (1956), have all varied the amount of irrelevant information in concept tasks. These studies differed with respect to other independent variables studied, but each showed that increases in irrelevant information caused significant increases in the difficulty of the task.…”

Some hypotheses about negative instances in single-attribute concept attainment.

“…Although increased stimulus complexity produced poorer performance the difference failed to reach a statistically significant level. Most of the complexity effects have occurred with mixed instances and widely separated numbers of dimensions (Archer, Bourne, & Brown, 1955;Bourne, 1957;Brown & Archer, 1956;Pishkin, I960, 1965).…”

The definition and analysis of perceptual learning.

“…The evidence on this kind of question is lacking, however. To be sure, a number of conceptformation studies have manipulated variables relating to the stimulus (e.g., 7,26), but the interest has been limited to the effect of such variables on the speed of acquisition of the concepts, rather than on the kind of discrimination of the stimuli achieved.…”