skipping steps

[Stephen Blessing]

on 10/22/99 10:49 AM, Gary Jones at gaj at psychology.nottingham.ac.uk wrote:

> I remember some years ago somebody did a model of skipping steps (I think
> it was a math task but I'm not sure). If anyone can remember this and can
> point me to a paper of it, I'd be most grateful.

Well, since I did this, hopefully I can remember it. Here's its reference:

Blessing, S. B. & Anderson, J. R. (1996). How people learn to skip steps.
Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 22,
576-598.

The task was an isomorph of simple algebra. If I remember correctly, this
was done under ACT-R 3.0, and a slightly modified analogy mechanism (which
may or may not now correspond to what's in 4.0). Unfortunately, I haven't
updated the actual model since that time. The paper will hopefully give you
all the info you need if you want to build on it in the current version of
ACT-R. Let me know if you have any further questions, though (if prompted, I
may be able to find the code, but again, I'm not sure how useful it may be
at this point).

Steve

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