Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society

In this project we show how the cognitive processes, and the learning patterns, of participants performing a typicalmultiple-cue learning (MCL) task is affected by the format (numeric or verbal) of the cues and the criterion. In twoexperiments we investigated the hypothesis that the reliance on linear additive integration in MCL-tasks is especiallypronounced when cues are presented in a numeric rather than verbal format. The results support the hypothesis. Withnumeric cues, we replicate previous findings supporting a systematic shift from cue-abstraction and additive integrationof cues when the task is additive, to reliance on exemplar memory when the task is non-additive. However, when cuesare verbal, no systematic shift in cognitive process is evident, with participants in general relying on exemplar memoryregardless of the task structure. Consequently, the numerical format is advantageous for learning in the additive task butat times disadvantageous in the non-additive task.