The Value of Demonstration in Human Maze Learning

In a first experiment, forty subjects were assigned to one of four groups. Each of these groups received one, two or three demonstrations, or no demonstration at all of a task on a bolt-head maze. It was found that number of demonstrations and reduction of errors per trial were positively related up to two demonstrations but no additional increment in performance appeared for three demonstrations. In a second experiment, error making by a demonstrator was contrasted with skilled demonstration. Three demonstrations with errors resulted in significantly fewer errors per trial than two demonstrations with errors. Three skilled errorless demonstration was nonsignificantly superior to three demonstrations with errors