Mathematical information processing skills and concept attainment

Mathematically oriented subjects (students of mathematics and physics) were compared with nonmathematically oriented subjects (students of English and Arabic languages) on a conjunctive concept attainment task to test the assumption that the problem-solving cognitive strategies of such tasks resemble certain mathematical information processing skills. The results showed that both groups approached the task differently, with a more effective performance by the mathematically oriented subjects over the nonmathematically oriented subjects.