Facilitation on a Response-Loaded Task by Changes in Task Difficulty

The relation between changes in problem difficulty and performance was extended from discrimination studies to a speeded skill task. Children were given repeated trials with easy and hard puzzle blocks. An intermediate number of changes in difficulty facilitated performance more than trial-to-trial change or no change. It was suggested that an optimal amount of change may vary with the type of task considered and that further work with various difficulty sequences and tasks seems warranted.