It is well documented that training the rules employed in figural matrices tests enhances
test performance. Previous studies only compare experimental conditions in which all or
no rules were trained and therefore ignore the particular influence of knowledge about
the easy and difficult rules. With the current study, we wanted to provide some first
insights into this topic. Respondents were assigned to four groups that received training
for no rules, only the easy rules, only the difficult rules, or for all rules. The results show
that a training only for the difficult rules was more effective than the other trainings.
This applies also to performance in the easy rules that were actually not part of the
training. A possible explanation for this finding is a facilitation of the solution process
that is primarily driven by knowledge about the difficult rules. In conclusion, our results
demonstrate that taking differences between the rules into account may provide a
deeper understanding of the effects of trainings for figural matrices test