Procedural frameworks for simple arithmetic skills

Rule-application skills such as simple arithmetic are often used as components of complex, goal-directed routines, and evidence suggests that goals to perform such skills can be instantiated in advance of information about specific operands. The procedural framework hypothesis is that goal instantiation evokes frameworks that guide the application of procedural knowledge, suggesting distinct processing roles for operator and operand symbols. In contrast, the uniform role hypothesis suggests that both types of symbols serve only as retrieval cues. Participants in 4 experiments solved simple Boolean or standard arithmetic problems. Serial display of problem elements showed a consistent solution-time benefit for operator-first displays compared with operands-first displays, supporting the procedural framework hypothesis for both new and highly practiced skills.