The relation between length and difficulty in motor learning; a comparison with verbal learning.

Abstract

The object of this investigation was to find what relationship exists between length and difficulty of material in serial motor learning and to compare this relationship with findings in the verbal field. Three hundred five (305) subjects, in 18 different groups, learned 13 mazes. Five groups learned the same 5 mazes that 5 other groups learned, but with a fuller set of instructions. Seven different lengths and 3 different types of mazes and 2 sets of instructions varying in degree of thoroughness were used.Experiments in the verbal field conducted by Ebbinghaus, 1 Meumann, 2 Binet and Henri, 3 Henmon, 4 Lyon, 5 and Robinson and Heron 6 indicate that longer lists of nonsense syllables or numbers require more repetitions for memorizing than do shorter ones. But there is some disagreement as to the rate at which repetitions must be added with additions to the length of the material. Most experimenters find that early increases in length are accompanied by more marked increases in repetitions than are later increases in length, and that there is an early increase in number of repetitions per syllable necessary for learning followed by a later decrease. Robinson and Heron, however, who have done the latest piece of work, 1 Garrett, Henry E., Great Experiments in Psychology, Chap. 3, Ebbinghaus's studies in memory and forgetting.1 Quoted by Henmon and by Robinson and Heron. 1 Quoted by Henmon. 4 Henmon, V. A. C, The relation between learning and retention and amount to be learned, /.

A comparison of correction and modified correction procedures on the acquisition of a 12-unit verbal maze.

“…In comparing such mazes, Brogden and Schmidt (1, 2) found significant increases with increasing number of choice points, and in fact found the data best described by straight lines. This is at variance with the usual findings on verbal learning where, when length of list or quantity of material is increased, the disproportionate increase in difficulty occurs (4,5,6). In the present study, time and total errors both increased significantly and linearly with increasing number of alternate choices.…”

Effect of number of choices per unit of a verbal maze on learning and serial position errors.

“…Studies of this kind of variable, however, show a disproportionate increase in difficulty of acquisition with its increase. This result has been obtained with verbal learning where length of list or quantity of material is increased (1), with learning of finger mazes where length of the maze is increased (5), and with learning the Peterson rational learning problem when the number of letters is increased (2).…”

On the length-difficulty relation in skill performance.

“…There is only scanty evidence as to the effects of task length upon motor learning. Scott and Henninger (1933) found similarity of the length-difficulty relationships in verbal and motor serial tasks (finger mazes). More recently, Trumbo, Noble, and Ulrich (1965) examined the effects of different-sequence lengths in an irregular step function, sequential tracking task, and found no difference between sequences of 5 and 10 units (targets) in length but significantly poorer performance with sequences of 15 targets.…”