Mental Representations of Goal-Directed Procedures

Zacks, Jeffrey

Abstract

Normal cognition is characterized by the ability to flexibly learn new procedures and to perform previously learned procedures. When this ability is disturbed, as in frontal apraxia, consequences are profound. Normal procedural learning may depend in part on hierarchically organized representations of the temporal structure of activity. Motivated by a theoretical account of event representations and recent work on the perception of goal-directed tasks, I hypothesize that such representations are shared across perception and skill acquisition. The studies proposed here test this hypothesis using a procedural learning program. Participants will learn a novel everyday procedural task, using a computer-based training system. Varying the layout of the computer interface allows a direct test of the role of the proposed event representations: Layouts that directly represent the temporal organization of the activity are hypothesized to lead to better performance. Varying the medium in which the information is presented (still pictures or video) allows a test of the specificity of these representations. In addition to testing the basic hypothesis, each of the two proposed experiments will examine a secondary theoretical issue. In the first experiment, a test of explicit memory for the task instructions will indicate the degree to which explicit memory mediates understanding of event structure. In the second experiment, a test of task transfer will indicate the degree to which representations of task structure are internalized and flexibly re-used. By taking advantage of a paradigm derived from recent theoretical and empirical work, these experiments will clarify the role of structured representations of events in normal cognition. They also provide a basis to develop systems to help patients cope with impaired procedural knowledge, as well as a basis for systems to assist in skill instruction.