Citation

Lee MD, Fisk AD. Hum. Factors 1993; 35(2): 205-220.

Affiliation

Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta 30332-0170.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1993, Human Factors and Ergonomics Society, Publisher SAGE Publishing)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

8349286

Abstract

The present experiment was conducted to investigate the effects of varying degrees of task consistency on the performance and maintenance of skill in a semantic-category visual search task. Four groups of participants first received 6,000 trials of consistent mapping (CM) training on two different categories. The participants then performed 4,000 trials in which one of the previously trained categories remained 100% consistent, whereas the other previously trained category became either 100%, 67%, 50%, or 33% consistent. This second phase of the experiment allowed for the examination of disruption of the search skill as a function of degree of consistency. Subsequent to the degree of consistency manipulation, 100% consistency was restored and participants performed another 4200 CM trials. Results indicate that performance was disrupted by inconsistency and that disruption increased as consistency decreased. On the return of task consistency, performance improved rapidly to predisruption levels, though some performance disruption was evident. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.