A mixed conceptual rule is one in which the correct response is determined both by the characteristics of the stimulus and by the position of the stimulus in the sequence. This experiment was designed to study mixed rules in concept learning by examining the effect of reversing the correct answer for a single trial every 4, 8, and 12 trials, along with a no-reversal control condition. Performance on both reversal and nonreversal trials improved as the spacing between reversal trials increased; the best performance was found with no reversals. The improvement from increased spacing appears to result from the increased opportunity to learn the basic concept between reversal trials.
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