Integrating Multiple Strategies Efficiently to Solve an Orientation Task

This research compares the general strategy described by participants doing an orientation task to two strategies described in past research on a different kind of spatial task, perspective-taking (array rotation and viewer rotation). This evaluation indicated that participants were quite flexible and efficient in their approach to the task. The strategy described in participants’ verbal reports made use of both of the perspective-taking strategies within individual trials. In addition, each alternative was applied in situations where previous research indicates that it holds an advantage over the other alternative. This research extends research on strategy use in spatial tasks by (1) showing how similar strategies can be applied to different kinds of spatial tasks and (2) illustrating how alternative strategies can be intermixed within a single task to produce efficient overall performance.