PSCH 352, Cognition and Memory, Summer 2005: Reading Worksheet Template

Due at the beginning of class.  Please type your answers.  Answers should be no more than 3
sentences long (with the exception of the special question, which can be longer).

Name: KEY
Date: 7/14/05
Article: Hecht, H., & Proffitt, D.R. (1995). The price of expertise: Effects of experience on the water-level
task. Psychological Science, 6(2), 90-95.

1. What was the purpose of this research?
Test if experience plays a role in performance on the water-level task.

2. What did the researchers do? (summarize method, including groups, manipulation(s), and
dependent variable(s))
120 adults from different subpopulations completed a paper-and-pencil version of Piaget's
water-level task.  IVs: gender (male vs. female), age (young adult vs. middle-aged), and
experience (expert at surface orientation/beverage-related work vs. novice); IVs spread
across 6 subgroups.  DVs: degree category of answer (relative to correct), absolute
error of answer.

3. What were the main results?
Effect of gender, age, and experience: males performed better than females, younger Ss
performed better than middle-aged Ss, Ss with less experience performed better than Ss
with more experience.  Ss with most experience, waitresses and bartenders, made most
errors.  The more experience that waitresses had, the greater the errors they made.

4. What is the take-home message (conclusion)?
Expertise can lead to errors in the water-level task.  Experience can lead to a preference for
the object-relative reference system, which although incorrect, is useful for the tasks that
waitresses and bartenders must perform.

5. Are there any problems with the research or do you have any criticisms?  Is there anything you
would do differently?
Did not measure years of experience for bartenders (brought up by authors).  Only considered
one task as evidence for development of object-relative reference system.  Other reasonable
criticisms/suggestions.

6. Special question: Will be assigned separately for each article/reading.
Hecht and Proffitt present a task where novices outperform experts.  Given the same group of subjects,
what task(s) could you use that would lead to the experts outperforming the novices?  Explain.
**Answers needed to treat the waitresses/bartenders as experts.  Tasks suggested must lead
waitresses/bartenders to show superior performance.