Procedural knowledge: Difference between revisions

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Revision as of 06:33, 25 February 2023

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The development of procedural knowledge is always entangled with the development of [[declarative knowledge]]. Researchers suggested that initial problem solving involves explicitly referring to examples, participants start with pure example-based processing.<ref>{{Cite journal|last1=Anderson|first1=John R.|last2=Fincham|first2=Jon M.|date=1994|title=Acquisition of procedural skills from examples.|url=http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0278-7393.20.6.1322|journal=Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition|volume=20|issue=6|pages=1322–1340|doi=10.1037/0278-7393.20.6.1322|pmid=7983466 |issn=1939-1285}}</ref><ref name=":2">{{Cite journal|last1=Anderson|first1=John R.|last2=Fincham|first2=Jon M.|last3=Douglass|first3=Scott|date=1997|title=The role of examples and rules in the acquisition of a cognitive skill.|url=http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0278-7393.23.4.932|journal=Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition|volume=23|issue=4|pages=932–945|doi=10.1037/0278-7393.23.4.932|pmid=9231437 |issn=1939-1285}}</ref> The examples illustrate the solution of a similar problem and the problem solver analogically maps the solution of the example onto a solution for the current problem. People make extensive reference to examples even when they are initially taught the rules and principles.<ref>{{Cite journal|last1=Ross|first1=Brian H.|last2=Kennedy|first2=Patrick T.|date=1990|title=Generalizing from the use of earlier examples in problem solving.|url=http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0278-7393.16.1.42|journal=Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition|volume=16|issue=1|pages=42–55|doi=10.1037/0278-7393.16.1.42|issn=1939-1285}}</ref> It is believed that when people acquiring cognitive skills, firstly an example is encoded as a declarative structure. When participants are tested on their first problems, they have two possible ways to respond. If the example matches the problem they learned, they can simply retrieve the answer. However, if it does not match, they must analogically extend the example.<ref name=":2" /> With repeated practice, general rules develop, and the specific example is no longer accessed. In this way, knowledge transitions from a declarative form (encoding of examples) to a procedural form (productions rules), which is called the adaptive control of thought—rational (ACT-R) theory.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Anderson|first=John R.|author-link=John Robert Anderson (psychologist)|title=Rules of the Mind|publisher=Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.|year=1993|isbn=9780805812008}}</ref>

However, in certain occasions, procedural and declarative knowledge can be acquired independently. Researches with amnesic patients found that they can learn motor skills without the ability to recollect the episodes in which they learned them, also learned and retained the ability to read mirror-reversed words efficiently, yet were severely impaired in recognizing those words, which give evidences about the neurological basis differences in procedural and declarative knowledge.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Corkin|first=Suzanne|date=1968|title=Acquisition of motor skill after bilateral medial temporal-lobe excision|url=http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/0028-3932(68)90024-9|journal=Neuropsychologia|volume=6|issue=3|pages=255–265|doi=10.1016/0028-3932(68)90024-9|issn=0028-3932}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal|last1=Cohen|first1=N.|last2=Squire|first2=L.|date=1980-10-10|title=Preserved learning and retention of pattern-analyzing skill in amnesia: dissociation of knowing how and knowing that|url=http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.7414331|journal=Science|volume=210|issue=4466|pages=207–210|doi=10.1126/science.7414331|pmid=7414331 |bibcode=1980Sci...210..207C |issn=0036-8075}}</ref> Researchers also found that some normal subjects, like amnesic patients, showed substantial procedural learning in the absence of explicit declarative knowledge. Even though declarative knowledge may influence performance on a procedural task, procedural and declarative knowledge may be acquired separately, one does not need to have knowledge of one type in order to build the other type of knowledge. The influence caused by declarative knowledge might be due to the facilitation to a process of pathway activation that is outside of conscious awareness.<ref name=":3">{{Cite journal|last1=Willingham|first1=Daniel B.|last2=Nissen|first2=Mary J.|last3=Bullemer|first3=Peter|date=1989|title=On the development of procedural knowledge.|url=http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0278-7393.15.6.1047|journal=Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition|volume=15|issue=6|pages=1047–1060|doi=10.1037/0278-7393.15.6.1047|pmid=2530305 |issn=1939-1285}}</ref> If the prime is highly predictive of the target, the amount of facilitation is increased because of an active, conscious, attentional effect that is superimposed on the pathway activation.<ref>{{Cite book|last1=Posner|first1=Micheal I|title=Facilitation and inhibition in the processing of signals|last2=Snyder|first2=Charles R|pages=669–682}}</ref> Therefore, if and when subjects develop explicit declarative knowledge of procedure, they can use this knowledge to form attentional expectancies regarding the next item in this procedure.<ref name=":3" />

== Activation ==