[sci.psychology] Psychological evidence for Case Based Reasoning

pryor@ils.nwu.edu (Louise Pryor) (02/09/90)

The claim is often made in AI case-based reasoning circles that it is
easier to remember a specific case than a general rule. In particular,
the claim appears to be made that a case can be learnt from one
presentation, whereas an abstract rule may take many presentations to
reach the same recall facility.

Does anyone know of any psychological work that has been done on this?
I am looking for references to experiments that either support or are
at variance with this claim for a paper I am writing.  There is one
experiment I have heard of where people found it easier to solve a
problem when the instructions were given in terms of a specific
example rather than in an abstract form. Does anyone have a reference
for this?

Please email responses to pryor@ils.nwu.edu

Thanks

Louise