Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: http://hdl.handle.net/1959.13/27875

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Title
The power law repealed: the case for an exponential law of practice
Author/Creator
Heathcote, A.;  Brown, Scott;  Mewhort, D. J. K.
Description
The power function is treated as the law relating response time to practice trials. However, the evidence for a power law is flawed, because it is based on averaged data. We report a survey that assessed the form of the practice function for individual learners and learning conditions in paradigms that have shaped theories of skill acquisition. We fit power and exponential functions to 40 sets of data representing 7,910 learning series from 475 subjects in 24 experiments. The exponential function fit better than the power function in all the unaveraged data sets. Averaging produced a bias in favor of the power function. A new practice function based on the exponential, the APEX function, fit better than a power function with an extra, preexperimental practice parameter. Clearly, the best candidate for the law of practice is the exponential or APEX function, not the generally accepted power function. The theoretical implications are discussed.
Relation
Psychonomic Bulletin and Review Vol. 7, Issue 2, p. 185-207
Relation
http://www.psychonomic.org/PBR/
Date
2000
Publisher
Psychonomic Society
Keyword(s)
power function;  APEX function;  response time
Resource Type
journal article
Identifier
http://hdl.handle.net/1959.13/27875
Identifier
ISSN:1069-9384
Language
eng
Reviewed
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Subject
"Psychonomic Bulletin and Review"
 
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