Acquisition, Retention, and Transfer of Response Selection Skill in Choice Reaction Tasks

Acquisition, retention, and transfer of response selection skill were examined using spatial precuing and symbolic cuing tasks. Initial reaction time differences within both tasks decreased rapidly across 3 sessions of practice, and these benefits were retained for 1 week. Intertask transfer from the spatial precuing task to the symbolic cuing task also was evaluated. Transfer effects were not apparent when all pairs of responses were precued during the initial practice sessions. However, transfer effects were apparent when practice was with a subset of the spatial precuing stimuli that corresponded to nonsalient locations. The results of the experiments are discussed in terms of the roles of declarative representations and task-specific procedures in the acquisition of response selection skill.