This article is concerned with the effect of a problem's environmental context on the learning of an “optimal” allocation rule. A series of sales allocation problems were presented to groups of executive and student subjects. While the allocation principle remained invariant over conditions, the context of the problem was experimentally modified. Results of the experiments indicated that: (1) both groups of subjects performed about the same; (2) the modifications made in the “surface” complexity of the problem did not markedly affect the probability of learning the allocation principle; and (3) a constant-probability-over-trials model appeared to describe learning behavior.
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