The role of interference and task similarity on the acquisition, retention, and transfer of simple motor skills |
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| Authors: | C A Wood C A Ging |
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| Institution: | Department of Instruction and Learning, University of Pittsburgh, PA 15261. |
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| Abstract: | The aim of the present study was to determine if two levels of task similarity influenced acquisition, retention, and transfer performance of three simple motor skills. Sixty right-handed subjects were randomly assigned to one of five (n = 12) experimental conditions. Each subject performed 72 trials during acquisition. Twenty-four trials were recorded for each movement task. Following a 5-min unfilled retention interval, subjects performed 4 trials on each task before completing 12 transfer trials of a novel movement. Contextual interference effects for acquisition and retention were supported for low but not high similarity tasks. Further, the results suggest that a different memory representation exists for high and low similarity tasks. |
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