Human cognitive architecture has evolved throughout history, thus facilitating the processing of certain types of knowledge that emerged early on in evolution and that have an adaptive benefit (e.g., recognizing faces or food). Despite its complexity, primary knowledge is processed almost effortlessly, as opposed to secondary knowledge which developed later during the course of evolution and which requires extra cognitive resources and motivation for processing (e.g., “academic” knowledge, such as mathematics or grammar). Primary knowledge also constitutes the basis for secondary knowledge. Using primary knowledge to encourage individuals to invest in a task that is not motivating has therefore been used in recent studies as a promising avenue of research. This study presents 3 experiments in which university students had to complete statistics exercises — statistics being renowned as a difficult discipline typically disliked by students. The task presented problem-solving exercises which were identical in structure but which differed in content, by referring to either primary or secondary types of knowledge. Primary knowledge content, particularly when presented first, enhanced performance and efficiency while maintaining motivation during problem solving. Participants appeared to be unaware of this positive effect. By contrast, secondary knowledge content had a negative effect on performance and seemed to reduce motivation when presented first. These findings suggest that the use of easy-to-process primary knowledge can enhance learning — simply by manipulating task content and presentation order.

人类认知结构在整个历史过程中不断发展，从而促进了对在进化早期出现并具有适应性益处（例如，识别面孔或食物）的某些类型的知识的处理。尽管初级知识很复杂，但处理初级知识几乎毫不费力，这与次级知识相反，次级知识是在进化过程中后来发展起来的，需要额外的认知资源和处理动机（例如，“学术”知识，如数学或语法）。初级知识也构成次级知识的基础。因此，在最近的研究中，使用初级知识来鼓励个人投资于一项没有激励作用的任务已被用作有前途的研究途径。这项研究提出了 3 个实验，在这些实验中，大学生必须完成统计练习——统计学被认为是一门通常​​不被学生喜欢的困难学科。该任务提出了结构相同但内容不同的问题解决练习，涉及主要或次要类型的知识。主要知识内容，尤其是首先呈现的内容，可以提高绩效和效率，同时在解决问题的过程中保持动力。参与者似乎没有意识到这种积极影响。相比之下，次要知识内容对表现有负面影响，并且在首次呈现时似乎会降低动机。这些发现表明，使用易于处理的初级知识可以增强学习——只需通过操纵任务内容和呈现顺序即可。