Dominant Strategies for Solving Sensorimotor Tasks in Students with Different Cognitive Resource Experience

The article introduces a new method for diagnosing the preferable cognitive resource strategy in university students. One’s personal experience of using cognitive resources defines the dominant strategies for solving sensorimotor tasks. Cognitive resource patterns can be described by using particular psychological indicators in order to select the optimal analysis method. The new method made it possible to model the situation of solving sensorimotor tasks and develop criteria for determining the strategies employed by university students to solve cognitive tasks in experimental conditions. The research involved 127 first-year students (18 y.o.) of Psychology, Tomsk State University. The strategies used by the students to solve sensorimotor tasks ranged from scarcity and heterogeneity to positive experience in cognitive resource application. Sensorimotor tasks proved to be an effective diagnostic marker of the cognitive development level during university education. The method also proved applicable as a cognitive simulator to develop optimal strategies in solving sensorimotor tasks of various levels of difficulty, as well as to reduce the existing deficiency in cognitive experience.