Spontaneous strategy use during a working memory updating task

Cognitive skill learning postulates strategy generation and implementation when people learn to perform new tasks. Here we followed self-reported use objective performance in a working memory (WM) updating task reveal development that should take place faced with this novel task. In two pre-registered online experiments healthy adults, examined short-term acquisition ca 20–30-minute adaptive n-back WM 15 blocks by collecting participants' reports after each block. Experiment 1 showed (a) about half of the participants reported using already during very first block, (b) changes selected were most common initial blocks, (c) more elaborated descriptions predicted better performance. 2 mostly replicated these findings, it additionally compared open-ended questions, repeated list-based queries influenced subsequent performance, also indicated higher rates change Strategy was significant predictor albeit some variance explained shared verbal productivity measured picture description The present results concur cognitive perspective highlight dynamics carrying out demanding