Effects of Concreteness on Representation: An Explanation for Differential Transfer

This study investigated the nature of internal representations constructed from learning concrete or generic instantiations of an abstract concept. Undergraduate students learned instantiations of a mathematical group that were generic, communicated concreteness relevant to the concept, or communicated concreteness irrelevant to the concept. Students who learned relevantly concrete instantiations were unable to recognize relational structure in the context of novel elements, while students who learned with no relevant concreteness were able to recognize the structure. This differential ability suggests participants constructed different representations which may in turn be responsible for differential transfer, with generic instantiations promoting transfer and relevantly concrete hindering. When given the alignment of elements across domains, all subjects transferred equally well, suggesting that alignment of elements helps disembed relational structure.