Specializing the operation of an explicit rule.

When dealing with a newly learned rule, one is often aware of relying on previous episodes of applying the rule. The specific materials or problems to which the rule was originally applied seem to have some privilege, particularly when the rule initially seems quite abstract. Understanding a difficult rule, or at least understanding how to apply it, seems to occur in terms of previous concrete applications. This impression is corroborated by Ross in his interesting work on remindings in problem solving (Ross, 1984, 1987, 1989; Ross & Kennedy, 1990). He demonstrated that performance while learning a word processing program or learning to solve simple probability problems is influenced by specific analogies with previously encountered problems. But what happens to these prior episodes of problem solving when the rule is not difficult, or when one has had sufficient practice to make it no longer seem difficult? Introspectively, the prior examples seem to disappear from active processing, a suggestion reflected in a wide variety of theories in cognitive psychology. In this article we argue that under common conditions, prior episodes retain an important role in helping apply the rule to new material, well after clear awareness of the prior episodes has disappeared. We make an ecological argument for the conditions under which episode-based knowledge has continued value.