Holsapple & Vanouse: Constant Automatic Error

Question 1

Constant Automatic Error

Answer 1

An error found in someone’s paper at least four times but when the person was asked how to spell that word orally they spelled it right

Question 2

Subjects

Answer 2

40 students in night-school typewriting class

11 used for study because they were found to make constant automatic errors

Question 3

Method & Results

Answer 3

These 11 students practiced words as correctly spelled and others as misspelled

The words that were practiced as correctly spelled had a lot of errors after practice. (30 total errors after practice)

The words practiced as misspelled had no errors after practice (0 total errors after practice)

” The only difficulty in the interpretation of these data lies in the fact that they seem ‘too good to be true’. In psychological experiments on learning, there are few instances in which the results in the experimentally varied situation differ from the results of the ‘control’ situation so completely as these do. “