Note to users. If you're seeing this message, it means that your browser cannot find this page's style/presentation instructions -- or possibly that you are using a browser that does not support current Web standards. Find out more about why this message is appearing, and what you can do to make your experience of our site the best it can be.

Science 21 October 1988:
Vol. 242. no. 4877, pp. 414 - 416
DOI: 10.1126/science.3175664
Prev | Table of Contents | Next

Articles

Science, Vol 242, Issue 4877, 414-416
Copyright © 1988 by American Association for the Advancement of Science

articles

A graph-dynamic model of the power law of practice and the problem-solving fan-effect

J Shrager, T Hogg, and BA Huberman

Xerox PARC, Palo Alto, CA 94304.

Numerous human learning phenomena have been observed and captured by individual laws, but no unified theory of learning has succeeded in accounting for these observations. A theory and model are proposed that account for two of these phenomena: the power law of practice and the problem-solving fan-effect. The power law of practice states that the speed of performance of a task will improve as a power of the number of times that the task is performed. The power law resulting from two sorts of problem-solving changes, addition of operators to the problem-space graph and alterations in the decision procedure used to decide which operator to apply at a particular state, is empirically demonstrated. The model provides an analytic account for both of these sources of the power law. The model also predicts a problem-solving fan-effect, slowdown during practice caused by an increase in the difficulty of making useful decisions between possible paths, which is also found empirically.


THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES:
Individual differences in expertise development over decades in a complex intellectual domain.
R. W. Howard (2009)
Mem Cognit 37, 194-209
   Abstract »    PDF »


To Advertise     Find Products

Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)