PAINTING IDENTIFICATION: NO SIGNIFICANT DIFFERENCE 1

Painting identification: No significant difference between massed and interleaved presentation

Logan W. Boyer

Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN

PAINTING IDENTIFICATION: NO SIGNIFICANT DIFFERENCE 2

Abstract

In this study we examine the previous research on the effects of interleaved practice on both

inductive and deductive learning when compared to massed practice. We conducted a single-factor

experimental design to analyze the performance of massed practice versus interleaving practice

for the inductive learning of paintings. Research has demonstrated the effectiveness of interleaved

practice in the presentation of paintings over massed practice, and we predict that our results will

replicate this finding. We presented 114 undergraduate participants from Purdue University with

paintings from three different artists in either a massed (presented consecutively) or interleaved

study phase condition, and then tested the participants by presenting previously unseen paintings

from the artists. An independent t-test was conducted to analyze the data and there was found to

be no significant effect between the performance of the massed practice condition and the

interleaved practice condition. Thus, our findings do not support our hypothesis on the increased

performance with interleaved practice and further research is required to see if these results

replicate in other areas of study.

Keywords: mass, interleave, learning, practice, painting

PAINTING IDENTIFICATION: NO SIGNIFICANT DIFFERENCE 3

Introduction

In the educational setting, massed practice is the de facto method in presenting information to be

learned and retained, with the majority of mathematics textbooks providing similar and massed

practice sets following a specified lesson (Rohrer & Taylor, 2007). Educators want to provide

related examples together in a massed fashion to enhance the learning and understanding of the

similarities between the examples for a particular category. This effect of using massed practice

to notice and determine the commonalities between concepts is referred to as the massing-aids-

induction hypothesis, and the hypothesis places emphasis on using massed rather than spaced

practice to aid inductive learning (Kornell et al. 2010). Kornell and Bjork (2008) found that

presenting paintings in the spaced (interleaved) condition led to significantly better test

performance as undergraduate participants correctly identified and recognized more of the

artists’ paintings in the interleaved condition than the massed condition, although the participants

did rate massed practice as being more effective even when the results showed otherwise.

Studies further examining the possible benefits of interleaved practice have shown interleaved

practice to be significantly more effective than massed practice in test conditions, even when

accounting and controlling for the positive effects of spaced practice. (Taylor & Rohrer 2010;

Kang & Pashler, 2012).

Seeking to answer the question of whether blocked (massed) or mixed (interleaved)

practice is superior when used for the deductive learning of mathematics problems, Rohrer and

Taylor (2007) tested undergraduate students on both massed versus spaced performance as well

as massed versus interleaved performance. The authors found spacing to be more effective than

massing in their first experiment, reaffirming the benefits of spacing when learning material. In

their second experiment, the authors found massing to be more effective than interleaved practice
PAINTING IDENTIFICATION: NO SIGNIFICANT DIFFERENCE 4

during practice performance but be significantly less effective during test performance with the

interleaved condition achieving an accuracy of 63% on the mathematics problems compared to

the massed accuracy of 20% on the test. They attributed the increased accuracy in test

performance from the interleaved group due to the participants having to discriminate between

the different formulas required for the mathematics problems and know which formula would

solve the problem. A limitation with the study was that the participants were comprised of

college students and that the effects may not replicate to other samples.

Kornell and Bjork (2008) aimed to determine whether spacing or massing aided with

inductive learning for paintings, as the authors hypothesized massing as the more effective

method for inductive learning. The authors found the opposite answer to their prediction, with

the spaced condition and the interleaving of the artists’ paintings resulting in a higher

performance from the undergraduate participants. However, on the questionnaire administered

after the test, the participants rated massing as being as effective or better than spacing. The

authors explained the strength of interleaving to be a result of having the participants to

discriminate among artists during practice, which allowed for their discrimination learning to be

enhanced. A limitation in this study is that the effects of spacing and interleaving are

confounded, and the authors were not conclusively able to determine whether spacing or

interleaving increased inductive learning.

The study by Taylor and Ruhrer (2010) addressed the possible confounds in the previous

studies such as Rohrer and Taylor (2007) as well as Kornell and Bjork (2008) and the study also

intended to find whether the effects of interleaved practice are applicable to other sample

populations. Namely the authors wanted to investigate whether the beneficial effects of

interleaving were due to the interleaving itself or due to spacing, as interleaving ensures that the
PAINTING IDENTIFICATION: NO SIGNIFICANT DIFFERENCE 5

presented concepts from different categories are distributed across time. Fourth grade students

were recruited for this study and using filler task for both the blocked (massed) and interleaved

conditions, the authors found interleaved practice to impair practice performance yet

significantly improve test performance. The authors theorized the advantages of interleaving to

be result of constantly switching between different tasks, improving discriminability. One caveat

was that the authors were not sure if the effects would generalize to other procedures.

Attempting to generalize the results from Kornell and Bjork (2008), researchers Kornell

et al. (2010) explored whether the effects of spaced practice applied to older adults. The authors

expected massing to be more effective for older adults given that inductive learning requires

holding on to examples in memory, and memory abilities tend to decline with age. The results

show that the interleaved paintings in the spaced practice led to higher performance in both the

induction and repetition conditions for older adults as well as for the younger adults. The results

also show that participants judged massing to be more effective for the inductive learning

condition and rated spacing as better for the repetition learning condition. A limitation for this

study was the question of whether the interleaving or the spacing contributed to the increase in

performance.

The authors Kang and Pashler (2012) sought to answer the question of whether the

effectiveness of spaced learning was a result of temporal spacing or of the interleaving of

examples. The results illustrate that the interleaved condition led to higher performance than that

of the massed and temporally spaced conditions, answering the question that the spaced learning

is effective due to the interleaving of examples. The authors conclude that interleaving provides

discriminative contrast among categories and is essential for inductive learning. A strength in

this study is validating and replicating the findings that came before it from Kornell and Bjork
PAINTING IDENTIFICATION: NO SIGNIFICANT DIFFERENCE 6

(2008) and Kornell et al. (2010) as well as offering an explanation for why interleaving is

effective for improving inductive learning.

This current study aims to replicate the findings from experiment 1 of Kang and Pashler

(2012), however, unlike Kang and Pashler (2012), this study will test immediate recall and have

no distractor test following the presentation of the paintings. This current study used a between

subjects experimental design presenting paintings by different artists with 114 participants in

either the interleaved or the massed condition and then test the participants’ performance. Based

on the previous research, this study hypothesizes the interleaved condition will show an

increased performance compared to the massed condition.

Method

Participants

The participants were 114 undergraduate students in the age rang 18-42 and 75.8% of the

students were female. The students were enrolled in the course Introduction to Research Methods

in Psychology at Purdue University and were required to complete this study for course credit.

Design

Single-factor design with two levels (massed and interleaved) manipulated between subjects

measuring the performance of correctly identifying paintings. Three of the lab sections for the

course were assigned the massed condition and the other three sections were assigned the

interleaved condition.

Materials

Forty paintings each by Jan Blencowe, Richard Lindenberg, and Karen Winters with 20

paintings by each of the three artists used for the study phase and 20 paintings each by the same
PAINTING IDENTIFICATION: NO SIGNIFICANT DIFFERENCE 7

artists for the test phase. A TV screen using Microsoft Powerpoint was used to present the

paintings. The participants recorded their answers on a provided response sheet which was

collected and scored. The data was analyzed using SPSS and Microsoft Excel.

Procedure

The experiment was conducted during the regular time for the lab section. Each participant was

given a unique ID number and an instruction sheet which informed the participant on the details

of the experiment. Demographic information on the sex and age of the participants was collected.

The instruction sheet had questions for the participant if they were familiar with the artists:

Blencowe, Lindenberg, or Winters. A response sheet was also given, and the participants were

instructed to fill it out during the test phase. For the study phase, each painting was presented for

5 seconds with a 1 second blank slide in between. For the massed condition, the paintings were

blocked by artist, showing 20 paintings by Jan Blencowe, 20 paintings by Richard Lindenberg

and then 20 paintings by Karen Winters. In the interleaved condition, the order of the presented

artists was still in the order of Blencowe, Lindenberg, and Winters, showing one painting of each

artist and repeating this 20 times. For the test phase, 20 new paintings from each of the three

artists were presented in a random order for a duration of 5 seconds, during which time the

participants reported their answer on the provided response sheet with no feedback. At the

conclusion of the experiment, the papers were exchanged and graded against a key provided by

the experimenters. The participants were then instructed to enter their data into an online

spreadsheet.
PAINTING IDENTIFICATION: NO SIGNIFICANT DIFFERENCE 8

Results

An independent t-test was conducted to analyze the data and p < 0.05 was considered significant.

Figure 1 displays the age of the participants compared to the presentation condition, to ensure

there were no possible confounds between the two conditions. No significant effect was found,

t(112) = -.0742, p > 0.05 with the average massed condition age being 20.17 and a standard

deviation of 2.007 and the average interleaved condition age being 20.53 with a standard

deviation of 3.089. Figure 2 displays the number of correctly identified paintings corresponding

to the presentation conditions of massed and interleaved to determine if there was a significant

difference. No significant effect was found, t(112) = -1.772, p > 0.05, with the performance for

the massed condition at 28.35 with a standard deviation of 5.844 and the performance for the

interleaved condition at 30.38 with a standard deviation of 6.344. This was a surprising result, as

it was hypothesized that the interleaved presentation condition would be more effective than the

massed presentation condition in correctly identifying paintings. Thus, the data does not support

that interleaving practice is more effective than massed practice in inductive learning and the null

hypothesis is accepted.

25 40
Age of Participants (years)

Number of Correctly
Identified Paintings

35
20
30
15 25
20
10 15
10
5
5
0 0
Massed Interleaved Massed Interleaved
Presentation Condition Presentation Conditions

Figure 1. Age of the participants relative to Figure 2. Performance of painting identification

presentation condition relative to presentation condition
PAINTING IDENTIFICATION: NO SIGNIFICANT DIFFERENCE 9

Discussion

The results from this experiment were unanticipated, as they do not replicate the expected

findings demonstrated from previous research by Kornell et al. (2010), as our study was a close

replication of the first experiment in their research article. Our study shared some of the

presented artist’s paintings like Blencowe and Lindenberg and although our study did only

include two of the four presentation conditions used in the experiment, I doubt this exclusion

would have any effect on the overall results. Perhaps the painting identification ability is

relatively stable for our participants, and the presentation condition would have little effect on

the participants’ inductive learning capabilities for studying paintings. Whatever the possible

reason as to why the results from earlier experiments did not replicate in our study, more

research is required to examine the effects of interleaved practice on inductive learning and if

these effects can replicate to other areas of interest.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the contributions of Amy P. Eapen, who reviewed and edited this research

paper as well as oversaw the experiment and data collection for our lab section. I would also like

to thank the graduate teaching assistants for the Introduction to Research Methods in Psychology

with their valuable work in collecting and analyzing the data for the multiple lab sections. I

would finally like to thank Dr. Thomas S. Redick for his engaging lecture material and guidance

on research methods and controlled experiments to teach the principles of collecting and

interpreting experimental data.

PAINTING IDENTIFICATION: NO SIGNIFICANT DIFFERENCE 10

References

Kang, S. H. K., & Pashler, H. (2012). Learning painting styles: Spacing is advantageous when it

promotes discriminative contrast. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 26(1), 97–103. DOI:

10.1002/acp.1801

Kornell, N., & Bjork, R. A. (2008). Learning concepts and categories: Is spacing the “enemy of

induction”? Psychological Science, 19(6), 585–592. DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-

9280.2008.02127.x

Kornell, N., Castel, A. D., Eich, T. S., & Bjork, R. A. (2010). Spacing as the friend of both

memory and induction in young and older adults. Psychology and Aging, 25(2), 498–503.

DOI: 10.1037/a0017807

Rohrer, D., & Taylor, K. (2007). The shuffling of mathematics problems improves learning.

Instructional Science, 35(1), 481-498. DOI: 10.1007/s11251-007-9015-8

Taylor, K., & Rohrer, D. (2010). The effects of interleaved practice. Applied Cognitive

Psychology, 24(1), 837-848. DOI: 10.1002/acp.1598