Feedback effects on sequential ordering in humans.
Showing the full correct sequence speeds up the first lesson, then the edge vanishes.
01Research in Context
What this study did
College students learned to tap colored squares in the correct order.
Three groups got different help. One group saw the right order after each try. One group only heard if their last pick was right. One group got no feedback.
The study tracked how fast each group learned the sequence.
What they found
Order feedback beat the other two methods on the first day.
Students who saw the full correct sequence needed fewer trials to master it.
The edge disappeared later. On follow-up tests and with new pictures, all groups scored the same.
How this fits with other research
Ferguson et al. (2022) later pitted equivalence-based instruction against progressive DTT. They also found early speed gains that evened out by mastery, showing the pattern holds across very different tasks.
Arntzen et al. (2015) added a six-second delay during pre-training and saw the same jump in early learning. Both papers agree: small timing tweaks can give a quick head start, but the benefit is short-lived.
Farber et al. (2017) moved the idea into special-ed classrooms. They added an identity-matching prompt to curb overselective attention. Like order feedback, the prompt helped at first, then faded, proving the lab result travels to schools.
Why it matters
Use order feedback when you need rapid early success, like the first session of a new chaining program or when motivation is low. Plan to drop it once the learner hits three correct sequences in a row. The boost is real but temporary, so don’t build long-term plans around it.
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After each error in a new chain, quickly show the full correct order once, then remove the help.
02At a glance
03Original abstract
Under various feedback conditions, 38 college undergraduates were asked to rearrange abstract graphic characters on a computer screen, placing them in arbitrarily designated "correct" sequences. Two sets of seven horizontally arrayed stimuli were used. In Experiment 1, subjects in Group 1 learned to arrange the first set under Selection Feedback in which a "+" appeared above each character after it was selected in the correct order and to arrange the second set under Order Feedback in which a correct response produced a copy of the character in its correct ordinal position at the top of the screen. For Group 2 the order of these conditions was reversed. In Experiment 2, for subjects in Group 3, correct responses produced neither of these types of feedback. Subjects in Group 4 received Order Feedback only until the first set was correctly ordered once. Order Feedback was more effective than Selection Feedback during initial acquisition of the first set but not during maintenance; no differences were found for the second set. Only 2 of 9 subjects successfully put the characters in correct sequential order under the No Feedback condition. When, in Experiment 2, Order Feedback was eliminated after the first correctly arranged sequence, the steady-state criteria were met more slowly than in Experiment 1.
Journal of the experimental analysis of behavior, 1987 · doi:10.1901/jeab.1987.48-209