title: Loss of cognitive skill across delays: constraints for theories of cognitive skill acquisition.
abstract: Mastering a cognitive skill requires many practice sessions, occurring over a period of days, weeks, months, or even years. Although a large body of research describes and explains gains made within a given practice session, few studies have investigated what happens to these gains across a delay, and none have examined effects of delays on item-general gains. Across 3 experiments, participants performed alphabet arithmetic verification in an initial practice session followed by a test session after a delay (from 0 to 30 days). All experiments included conditions yielding item-general practice gains; Experiments 2-3 also included an item-specific practice condition. Surprisingly, item-general gains were relatively well preserved across a delay (e.g., only 6.7% decrease in practice effects after 2 days), whereas item-specific gains showed sizeable losses across a delay (e.g., 25.9% loss after 2 days). Results provide important empirical constraints to theories of cognitive skill acquisition.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Kent State University, Kent, OH 44242-0001, USA. nwilkins@kent.edu
authors.forename: Nicolas J
authors.initials: NJ
authors.lastname: Wilkins
authors.forename: Katherine A
authors.initials: KA
authors.lastname: Rawson
mesh_terms: D000704:Analysis of Variance; D003071:Cognition / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D011939:Mental Recall / Q000502:physiology*; D011214:Practice, Psychological; D013997:Time Factors; D055815:Young Adult