title: The role of interference and task similarity on the acquisition, retention, and transfer of simple motor skills.
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.
authors.affiliation: Department of Instruction and Learning, University of Pittsburgh, PA 15261.
authors.forename: C A
authors.initials: CA
authors.lastname: Wood
authors.forename: C A
authors.initials: CA
authors.lastname: Ging
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D003071:Cognition / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D009048:Motor Skills / Q000502:physiology; D011930:Reaction Time; D012153:Retention, Psychology; D013647:Task Performance and Analysis; D014163:Transfer, Psychology