Which of the following statements is consistent with cognitive approach to learning?

Explanatory Scope

Cognitive Theories

Cognitive theories share the basis that one's thoughts and interpretations of the environment are prone to errors, distortions, and incorrect assumptions. Cognitive theories are readily translated into therapeutic interventions, especially through cognitive-behavioral therapy, which seeks to address cognitive distortions and maladaptive assumptions to develop healthier interpretations of, and reactions to events. For example, sex offenders, such as child molesters, tend to have distorted thinking, including what Ward and Keenan (1999) refer to as implicit theories about the world, which include viewing children as sexual beings entitled to sexual fulfillment; seeing other adults as dangerous; believing that sexuality is fundamentally uncontrollable; and assuming that there is little harm and potentially even benefits associated with sexually abusing a child. The majority of sex offender treatment programs in the United States and the United Kingdom take a cognitive-behavioral approach in teaching offenders to change their thoughts and behavior patterns in order not to reoffend. These programs are considered empirically supported in reducing recidivism (Beech et al., 2013). Thus, how people think can have a strong impact on their behaviors and how they express their sexuality.

Althof et al. (2005) reviewed how cognitive factors, such as a lack of sexual confidence, anxiety, depression, inadequate sexual information, guilt, and low self-esteem can also trigger or maintain more commonplace sexual problems, such as low sex drive and erectile dysfunction. For example, Barlow (1986) theorized that anxiety in men with erectile dysfunction caused cognitive interference, distractibility, and an inadequate processing of sexual stimuli. Mental distractions from the sexual stimuli are then detrimental to the physical sexual responses of the man. Common cognitive distractions include performance anxiety and feelings of inadequacy. Cognitive-behavioral therapy has also been used to address distorted thinking, anxiety, and maladaptive thoughts in women with hypoactive sexual desire disorder with nearly half the women benefiting from this type of treatment (Althof et al., 2005). Overall, how people think has been implicated in a number of sexual problems and targeting cognitions has become an integral part of sex therapy.

Cognitive Behavioral Theory

Beck's cognitive theory of depression (Beck et al., 1979) describes how, through early experiences, people develop beliefs about themselves, the world, and the future. This information is stored as stable, global, core beliefs, not immediately accessible to conscious reflection. Core beliefs may be activated by environmental triggers, such as a situation that is relevant to, or consistent with its content. This leads to activation of conditional rules or ‘dysfunctional assumptions’ – strongly held personal rules, containing information about how the individual or environment should be in order to satisfy the core belief. Phrased as absolute demands, dysfunctional assumptions are often preverbal, excessive, and unreasonable. Active dysfunctional assumptions then interact with the environment to generate situation-specific statements known as negative automatic thoughts, which are accessible to awareness and lead to low mood and to the symptoms of depression including affective, cognitive, behavioral, and motivational responses.

Although early experiences are considered particularly important in the formation of core beliefs, through our lives we constantly interact with our environments, thus generating new information to update and correct them. However, certain cognitive processes may mean that unhelpful information persists despite new contradictory information. For example, individuals with depression show an increase in cognitive processes, such as mood-congruent thoughts or selective attention, which manipulate interpretations of events, making it more likely that new information will be consistent with existing schemas.

Since the introduction of Beck's theory, specific cognitive accounts or models have been developed to explain emotional difficulties in other areas. These models are based on clinical observations, formed into hypotheses and tested through experimental methods. The overriding commonality between models is the assumption that distress is the result of an unhelpful interpretation of an environmental or internal trigger. The nature of this interpretation will determine the emotional response. Those characterized by overestimation of threat are likely to lead to anxious responses, interpretations of loss lead to a sad or depressed emotional response, whereas interpretations connected to injustice may lead to angry responses. These interpretations are then unwittingly and unfortunately maintained through a combination of cognitive, behavioral, affective, and interpersonal responses, the relative contribution of which are differentially emphasized across various different psychological problems. For example, an individual presenting with a phobia of dogs may experience their distress as a result of their interpretation that “all dogs are dangerous and will bite me,” which may be triggered every time that a dog is present in their immediate environment. This interpretation of threat may then be maintained through an avoidance of all dogs (thus precluding any opportunity for disconfirmation of this anxious prediction), and hypervigilance and cognitive biases around dog-threat related stimuli (therefore making it more likely that any barking in the area will be noticed and interpreted as a sign that a dog is out of control).

Assimilation Theory

In presenting cognitive theory, recall that much of the behaviorist research, leading to a stimulus–response (S–R) theory of learning, was done on animals, who do not form concepts, and in human rote learning. Since concept learning is an important part of human learning, behaviorally based research is not sufficient in describing human learning.

In cognitive learning theory, there is a continuum from rote learning to meaningful learning. In rote learning, new information is placed in cognitive structure in an arbitrary manner. In meaningful learning, new information is linked to relevant, existing concepts in cognitive structures (or mental models). The structural core is the interaction of this new knowledge with the preexisting knowledge, often modifying both the new and preexisting information. With meaningful learning, old and new information is assimilated and formed into a more structured cognitive organization.

Assimilation encoding theory is a three-stage model that involves actively integrating new information with existing knowledge and measuring results in terms of breadth rather than amount retained. The three stages are: receipt of information from the outside world; availability of relevant anchoring knowledge in long-term memory; and, transfer of anchoring knowledge from long-term memory to working memory and active integration of that knowledge with incoming information during learning.

This theory predicts that advance organizers, given before learning, can facilitate the availability of anchoring knowledge and the integration of this existing knowledge with incoming information. There are several reasons, according to Assimilation Encoding Theory, why advance organizers may succeed or fail to influence learning. If the material to be learned lacks an overall structure, then an effective advance organizer cannot be constructed. If the advance organizer does not provide an adequate assimilative context, then integration of new and existing information may not occur. If the learner already possesses relevant experience and knowledge or a well-developed cognitive structure (schema), the use of advance organizers may have no benefit.

6.17.6.3 Cognitive Theories of OCD

A number of cognitive theories of OCD grow out of an appraisal model (Lazarus, 1966) in which appraisals of threat (primary appraisal) and appraisals of coping resources (secondary appraisal) are considered central to the development of OCD. As noted earlier, Carr (1974) observed that obsessive compulsives make abnormally high estimates of the probability of unfavorable outcomes. That is, they more often anticipate danger or negative outcomes than do nonobsessionals. Carr (1974) suggested that compulsive behaviors are intended to reduce the threat created by this erroneous judgment of risk. McFall and Wollersheim (1979) expanded on this idea and theorized that the overestimate of threat by patients with OCD is part of an inaccurate primary appraisal process (cf Lazarus, 1966) which contributes to the development of OCD. They proposed that four types of beliefs or assumptions contribute to inaccurate appraisal and result in the overestimation of negative outcomes. These include beliefs about the need for perfect competence to feel worthwhile and avoid criticism; that making mistakes or failing to meet one's ideals should result in punishment or condemnation; that one has power to prevent disastrous outcomes by magical rituals; and that certain thoughts and feelings are unacceptable, potentially catastrophic, and worthy of punishment. McFall and Wollersheim also suggested that patients with OCD are deficient in secondary appraisal of their abilities to cope with threat.

In a very similar vein, Guidano and Liotti (1983) outlined a cognitive model of OCD that emphasized two primary features: the need for perfection and for certainty to avoid criticism and risk. These theorists further suggested that three of the irrational beliefs described by Ellis (1962) are especially relevant in OCD. These are that one should be thoroughly competent, adequate, and achieving in all possible respects to consider oneself worthwhile; that one should be very concerned about potential danger and dwell on the possibility of its occurring; and that perfect solutions to all problems are available and should be sought. A similar model was also proposed by Warren and Zgourides (1991) whose rational emotive therapy model derives from Ellis's concepts. Like other appraisal models, it also emphasizes the role of irrational beliefs. They propose that unpleasant or stressful events produce intrusive thoughts. If irrational beliefs are related to these intrusive thoughts, they become important and develop into obsessions. The above theories are clearly similar with regard to the specific irrational beliefs hypothesized to be most central to OCD. As evident below, these proposals have been largely subsumed by more recent cognitive theorizing.

The best articulated and experimentally supported cognitive theory of OCD has been proposed by Salkovskis (1985, 1989) who has drawn heavily from Beck's (1976) cognitive theory of emotional disorders. In this model, Salkovskis relies on extensive research showing that intrusive cognitions are normal phenomena experienced by over 90% of the population (e.g., Freeston, Ladouceur, Thibodeau, & Gagnon, 1991; Rachman & deSilva, 1978; Salkovskis & Harrison, 1984). Thus, what distinguishes people with OCD is not the experience of intrusive thoughts, but the way in which their occurrence and content are interpreted. While most people simply are surprised by and merely ignore these intrusions, people with OCD ascribe special importance to them. According to Salkovskis, a set of underlying beliefs determines the reaction to negative intrusive experiences in people with OCD. These underlying beliefs are characterized by an exaggerated sense that one is responsible for harm to oneself or others and must act to prevent it. When the intrusive thought is interpreted in this light, the person seeks to reduce the discomfort by engaging in some form of neutralization (i.e., compulsion, suppression, or avoidance). Although the role of responsibility in OCD has been described by a number of previous theorists (Rachman & Hodgson, 1980; McFall & Wollersheim, 1979), Salkovskis refined the concept and elevated it to an explanatory level. This theory suggests that two things happen in OCD. First, patients appraise the intrusive thought as an indication that they are in some way responsible for harm or its prevention. Second, this appraisal elicits neutralizing behavior (overt or covert). If some other form of negative appraisal occurs without the appraisal of responsibility, Salkovskis suggests that neutralization will not take place and the result will be anxiety and/or depression, but not OCD. Thus, the core hypothesis/ assumption of this model is that OCD symptoms are neutralizing efforts to address the appraisal of responsibility for harm.

Responsibility has been discussed already in the context of cognitive characteristics of OCD. Neutralization has been defined as “voluntarily initiated and conducted activity which is intended to have the effect of reducing the perceived level of responsibility” (Salkovskis, Richards, & Forester, 1995, p. 285), linking such efforts to responsibility. Included in neutralization are overt behaviors (washing, checking, etc.), as well as mental events, attempts to put things right, thought suppression, and reassurance seeking. Consistent with earlier anxiety-reduction models, Salkovskis et al. (1995) suggested that neutralization effectively reduces the level of perceived responsibility in the short run, but increases the probability of intrusive thoughts in the longer term.

A great deal of research has been generated by this model, much of it supporting the basic contention that responsibility is a primary feature of OCD. Experimental manipulations of responsibility (Lopatka & Rachman, 1995) and refinements in the nature and measurement of obsessional responsibility (Rheaume, Free-ston, Dugas, Letarte, & Ladouceur, 1995; Salkovskis et al., 1995) tend to support the theory. Some revisions and critiques have been proposed. Clark and Purdon (1993) propose that more emphasis should be given to dysfunctional beliefs about controlling thoughts and the costs of not doing so and to the role of depression in actually impairing patients' ability to control their thoughts. They also suggest that neutralization is not so much an essential component in the formation and maintenance of OCD, but develops only when other thought control efforts fail. O'Connor and Robillard (1995) criticize Salkovskis' theory, concluding that people with OCD do not react to an actual feared stimulus, nor to the perceived consequences, but instead to what they imagine might be there, despite a lack of sensory evidence to support the belief. This concept is similar to the thought-action fusion in that what is imagined seems a real possibility. They argue that a faulty inference process is responsible for OCD beliefs, and posit several types of inference errors. For example, rather than forming a hypothesis about an obsessional fear (the table is dirty) and testing it (feeling the table), people with OCD revise the evidence to fit the hypothesis (it must be dirty because I can imagine it dirty). Thus, OCD rituals are attempts to change the “fictional narrative” by altering reality. Further reality testing difficulties are evident in explanations for obsessional beliefs that make reference to superstitions, magical or pseudoscientific explanations, or rely on information that is irrelevant to the current situation. Further, O'Connor and Robillard propose that OCD patients make irrelevant or incidental associations between objects or events and use these to establish links in a way quite similar to sympathetic magic. Several other theories are cognitive in nature, but have been described earlier in the sections on information processing (Enright, 1996) and biological models (Pitman, 1987).

It is clear from the above review that observation of patients with OCD have led to a rich variety of theoretical ideas that involve cognitive conceptualizations of the origins and maintenance of this disorder. Although early cognitive treatments were not derived from theories that were specific to OCD symptoms, more recent studies have examined rational-emotive therapy (RET) and Beckian-derived cognitive therapy based somewhat more directly on some of the above ideas. The effects of these methods are detailed below.

3 Applying Social Cognitive Conceptualizations of Motivation and Achievement

In general, social cognitive theories of motivation, particularly goal theory and PI theory, have alerted researchers to the ways in which motivation and achievement may be differentially constructed across cultural (and other) contexts. However, a significant remaining question from this perspective is the following: Is there a single motivational environment that can be constructed in most applied settings (e.g., schools, hospitals, businesses, government organizations), especially when these settings are typically diverse in many ways with respect to individuals’ ages, genders, cultural backgrounds, and socioeconomic status? This is an important question because a range of different motivational environments cannot be easily generated in most applied settings. Theory and research have gone a considerable distance in demonstrating that mastery goals are preferable to ability performance goals in a wide range of situations. This is because mastery goals focus on an individual’s attention to the task(s) to be completed rather than on the individual’s perceived ability (or lack thereof) to complete the task(s). Psychologically, this appears to “free” individuals to perform at optimal levels, even in the face of difficulties. Indeed, it might also be that performance goals are dysfunctional in many applied settings, although not in all cases. More recently, social goals have also been shown to have adaptive effects on an individual’s engagement in a variety of achievement and social situations. These social goals may be particularly relevant in non-Western cultural settings, where the social dimensions of motivation and achievement may be more salient than in Western settings.

Neuropsychology

There are three main cognitive theories of autism and Asperger's disorder: theory-of-mind, the executive dysfunction theory, and the theory of weak central coherence. Deficiencies in theory-of-mind – that is, the ability to understand that other people have unique perspectives and thoughts that are sometimes contextually independent – may be linked to the social-communicative deficits. Weak central coherence, a deficit in the ability to integrate details into a coherent global perception, may be linked to the tendency to be preoccupied with parts of objects and to miss the ‘bigger picture.’ Executive functioning refers to the role of the frontostriatal circuits in coordinating cognitive-motor output so that behavior is well timed, planned, adaptable, appropriate, and relevant. The repetitive, stereotyped, and restricted behaviors may be due, in part, to deficient executive functioning. Movement abnormalities in ASDs, in particular gait (walking) abnormalities, may be underpinned by disruption to neural circuitry involving the basal ganglia and cerebellum.

Mood Congruence Effects in Anxiety: Memory and Attentional Biases

As in depression, cognitive theories of anxiety disorders link biased attentional, and to a lesser extent memory, processes in the development and perpetuation of anxious mood state (Beck & Clark, 1997; Eysenck, 1992; Mathews & Macleod, 1994). Anxious mood state has been hypothesized to be associated with hypervigilance, in which individuals more readily detect and engage with threat-related information in their environment (Barlow, 2000; Beck & Clark, 1997). Anxious cognitive biases are also thought to involve delayed disengagement from cues and stimuli associated with threat, resulting in a net increase in stimulus-driven attention towards threat (Eysenck, Derakshan, Santos & Calvo 2007; Fox et al., 2002). Moreover, the increased attention allocation to threat-related stimuli in anxiety is thought to come at the expense of goal-directed task completion, particularly when the information to be processed is neutral (Eysenck et al., 2007). It has been suggested that when this threat-focused processing style becomes chronic, it, in part, promotes the development of a feedback loop in which the world is perceived as dangerous, and pathological coping strategies are more likely to be enacted, including avoidance and worry (Barlow, 2000). Mirroring depression, the cognitive biases accompanying clinical anxiety are postulated to drive and perpetuate the disorder.

Of note, studies examining mood congruence in anxiety most commonly have compared those who score high on trait anxiety measures to those who score lower on these assessments. Relative to work done on depressed mood, there appears to be somewhat less research examining the effects of clinical anxiety (e.g., generalized anxiety disorder, GAD) or induced anxiety on memory and attention. The heterogeneity of clinical diagnoses within the anxiety disorders category may also complicate the study of mood-congruent processing. Unlike the spectrum of unipolar depressive disorders, which involve varying levels of sad mood, anxiety disorders vary rather broadly in the content and specificity of perceived threats. In the revision of psychiatric disorders reflected in the DSM 5, trauma and stress-related disorders have become a separate category as have obsessive compulsive disorders (OCDs; American Psychiatric Association, 2013).

For example, while GAD is characterized by diffuse worry in a variety of contexts, OCD and specific phobias, by definition, are related to fear of clearly defined, specific entities (e.g., fear of contamination or spiders; American Psychiatric Association, 2000). From the standpoint of the schema and network theories of mood-congruent processing presented earlier, what is truly “mood-congruent” stimuli should differ quite markedly from one type of anxiety disorder to another depending on the type of information most strongly linked to the anxious mood state in the network (Radomsky & Rachman, 1999). In our review of the literature, it appears that some anxiety researchers are more attentive to the possible effects of stimuli relevance on mood-congruence than others. Therefore, while we believe examining differences in the type of threat stimuli most salient to individuals should be given more detailed consideration in future research, in the discussion that follows, we focus largely on mood-congruence findings in the context of nonspecific trait and state anxiety and do not distinguish between the specific types of threat-related stimuli used.

Despite the fact that many of the diagnoses subsumed under the category of anxiety disorders present and are classified by heightened memory for threatening events (e.g., flashback memories of trauma events in post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), panic attacks in panic disorder (PD); American Psychiatric Association, 2000), the evidence for mood-congruent memory in anxious mood is not as consistent as that demonstrated for memory biases in depression (Coles & Heimberg, 2002). In fact, it had previously been posited that anxiety promotes attentional, but not memory biases (Mathews & MacLeod, 1994; Williams, Watts, MacLeod, & Mathews, 1997).

Findings on whether anxiety leads to mood-congruent memory have been mixed. Some studies find no threat-related or negative explicit memory biases in generalized anxiety (Bradley, Mogg, & Williams, 1995), social phobia (Rinck & Becker, 2005), or induced anxiety (Foa, McNally, & Murdock, 1989). A descriptive review of the literature on mood-congruent memory in anxiety disorders found varying support for explicit memory biases by type of diagnosis, with compelling evidence for explicit biases only in PD, and to a lesser extent PTSD and OCD, but not in GAD or specific phobia (Coles & Heimberg, 2002). Implicit memory biases, however, were more consistent across these anxiety disorders (Coles & Heimberg, 2002). As acknowledged by the authors, the relatively limited number of studies in each diagnostic category, as well as the wide variation in the nature of stimuli used, limits the conclusiveness of these findings (Coles & Heimberg, 2002).

Attentional biases in anxiety have been extensively explored. In 2007, Bar-Haim, Lamy, Bakermans-Kranenburg, Pergamin, and van IJzendoorn (2007) completed a meta-analysis of 172 studies examining threat-related attentional bias in over 2000 anxious individuals as compared to over 1500 nonanxious control participants. Results of this study showed that across a number of experimental paradigms, including emotional Stroop, dot-probe, and spatial cuing tasks using both subliminal and supraliminal stimulus presentations, attentional biases favoring threat-related stimuli were present in anxious individuals with a moderate effect size (d=0.45, P<0.01; Bar-Haim et al., 2007). Despite adequate power, the attentional bias to threat stimuli in nonanxious controls was near zero and non-significant (d = − 0.007, P=0.85), suggesting similar biases favoring threat-related information do not exist in those without clinical or elevated anxiety levels (Bar-Haim et al., 2007).

In this meta-analysis, attentional threat-related biases appeared to exist for clinically, trait, and state anxious individuals (Bar-Haim et al., 2007). Within-subject attentional biases favoring threat-relevant information were significant across studies for those experiencing clinical levels of anxiety (d = − 0.45), high trait anxiety (d=0.38), and those assigned to groups on the basis of state anxiety levels (d=0.65; Bar-Haim et al., 2007).

To understand the temporal dynamics of attention in anxious individuals, the time course of attentional deployment in anxiety for facilitated engagement and impaired disengagement in attention has been studied extensively. A widely held perspective is that highly anxious individuals demonstrate sequential attentional stages, such as orienting rapidly to threat, facilitated engagement with threat once detected, impaired disengagement from threat, and lastly, attentional avoidance by focusing away from the threat (Fox et al., 2001; for a review and model, see Ouimet, Gawronski, & Dozois, 2009). This pattern is consistent with the “vigilance-avoidance” hypothesis, which suggests that anxious individuals first engage more strongly with, and then more reliably avoid, threat-relevant material as compared with nonanxious persons (Mogg, Bradley, Miles, & Dixon, 2004).

Facilitated orientation to and engagement with threat information in anxiety is generally seen at short, or subliminal, stimulus presentations and fades at longer durations, while dot probe tasks have largely found evidence for impaired disengagement at longer, supraliminal presentations (for reviews, see Cisler & Koster, 2010; Ouimet et al., 2009). However, the results of a study by Koster, Crombez, Verschuere, Van Damme, and Roelf Wiersema (2006; Experiment 1) using a modified cuing task indicated that high trait anxious individuals show attentional bias in both facilitated engagement and impaired disengagement in the early stages of image presentation (100 ms) and avoidance at later stages (200–500 ms). Others have found that those induced to feel anxious show delayed disengagement from threat stimuli even at longer durations relative to nonanxious controls (600 ms; Fox et al., 2001). Attentional avoidance of threat stimuli in anxious individuals has been shown to begin at display times of 500 ms (Onnis, Dadds, & Bryant, 2011) or longer (Mogg et al., 2004). While these results generally support the sequential attentional pattern described above, there appears to be some overlap in timeframes, particularly in delayed disengagement and avoidance.

While mood-congruent memory effects are less clear in anxiety than in depression, attentional bias to threat is well-established for anxiety. Persons with clinical anxiety disorders and those with high trait and/or state anxiety orient more readily to potential environmental threats as they first appear, take longer to disengage attention from them, but then are more likely to show avoidance at longer time intervals. While the exact time course of these bias changes is still a matter for debate among researchers, the overall order of these attentional stages in anxiety appears to be consistent across studies, involving facilitated orientation and engagement, delayed disengagement, and ultimately avoidance.

Cognitive Approaches

In contrast to discrete emotions theory, cognitive emotions theory proposes that an infant’s ability to experience and communicate discrete emotions is connected to the development of cognitive abilities. Thus, although infants cry and have a nonsocial smile at birth, not all approaches accept that infants possess an innate ability to experience emotions. Rather, within the cognitive approach, the experience of distress and happiness emerges at 2–3 months of age, as cognitive skills develop.

Among the cognitive-centered approaches to early social and emotional development is Vygotsky’s theory of social development. Vygotsky is best known for introducing concepts such as the zone of proximal development, which refers to the range of capacities and problem solving that the infant can achieve independently and those that the infant can achieve in collaboration with adult support and scaffolding, which refers to the behaviors that parents and other older interactive partners employ to enhance the infant’s capacities. Central to Vygotsky’s theory is the idea that infants develop new social and cognitive skills through interactions with older individuals. Vygotsky believed that, as an infant and caregiver participate in an activity, the adult begins by guiding and leading the experience (i.e., scaffolding the infant’s experience), slowly giving more control to the infant. Vygotsky proposed that infants collect ‘tools’ to help them learn and grow. The older individuals in an infant’s social network are some of these ‘tools’. Thus, the older individuals in the child’s world teach him or her not only about objects in the environment, but about the social context in which specific objects are employed and the kinds of social interactions that can be expected. Emotional experiences are interpreted within this social framework.

In his theory of early social development, Vygotsky highlighted the importance of ‘all’ social interactions. Not only are mother–child interactions important, but any older peer or adult influence can be significant. This is particularly relevant when considering the different models of caregiving found across cultures, as well as varied family constellations within cultures. For example, some cultures might emphasize interactions across generations, with grandparents filling the primary caregiver role. Other cultures might advocate community-centered caregiving, with infants and children spending time with many different members of the community. All of these relationships are thought to be essential to early social development.

Redundancy

Contrary to the DCT and the CTML, which assume that adding pictures to texts always leads to better learning because two codes in memory are better than one, the integrated model predicts that the combination of texts and pictures can also have detrimental effects under specific conditions. One of the detrimental effects is called the redundancy effect (Sweller et al., 1998). If learners have high prior knowledge, they frequently do not need text as well as pictures as information sources because one source provides all the required information. In this case, adding a picture to a written text or adding a written text to a picture means adding unneeded information. Although only one of the two information sources is needed, the eye wanders between both of them resulting in a split of attention. Thus, the learner loses time and expends mental effort searching for redundant information. The integrated model predicts that learners with higher expertise will perform better with only one information source (i.e., text or picture) while those with lower expertise will perform better with two information sources (i.e., text and pictures). This prediction is in line with various research findings (cf. Mayer, 2001; Sweller et al., 1998) and is also referred to as the expertise reversal effect (Kalyuga et al., 2000).