Verbal Ability, Previous Practice and Load on Short-Term Memory as Determiners of Differences in a Complex Learning Task. An Experimental Study

Traditional psychometric theory and practice classify people according to broad ability dimensions but do not ex-amine how these mental processes occur. Hunt and Lansman (1975) proposed a 'distributed memory ' model of cognitive processes with emphasis on how to describe individual diff-erences based on the assumption that each individual possesses the same components. It is in the quality of these components that individual differences arise. Carroll (1974) expands Hunt's model to include a production system (after Newell and Simon, 1973) and a response system. He developed a frame-work of factor analytic (FA) factors for. the purpose of des-cribing how individual differences may arise from them. This scheme is to be used in the analysis of psychometric tests.. Recent advances in the field of information processing are examined and include 3 1) Hunt's developmen·t of differ