An assessment of individual differences in the development of automaticity in a psychomotor learning task and the effect of original learning environment on memory

• Main Author: Flor, Richard Frederick
• Format: Dissertation
• Language: English
• Published: ProQuest Dissertations & Theses 01-01-1995
• Subjects: Curricula; Curriculum development; Education; Educational psychology; Teaching
• ISBN: 9798208086476

Individual differences in the development of automaticity and the effects of dual-task learning were investigated. Forty-three college students participated in a learning session which involved learning a hand-tapping pattern (target task). The learning session was broken into two phases; all subjects practiced the target task alone up to a performance criterion (mastery). Beyond mastery, the experimental group practiced under a dual-task condition where they were given a distractor task simultaneously with the target task on fifty percent of the trials. Session one ended for the experimental group when they reached criterion for automaticity: performance on the target task unaffected by the distractor task. The control group practiced under single-task learning beyond mastery and ended when they reached the average number of total trials needed by the experimental group to reach automaticity. Subjects returned one week later and their memory for the hand-tapping task was tested. Greater variation was found in amount of practice needed to reach automaticity as compared to practice needed to reach mastery. This contradicted an earlier study under similar experimental conditions. Dual-task conditions promoted earlier development of automatic processing and led to higher performance than single-task learning. Performance differences between individuals with different hand-tapping styles (sequential, simultaneous) emerged earlier and were maintained more consistently throughout the learning session under dual-task conditions. In the follow-up session, which involved replication of the hand-tapping sequence without a distractor, dual-task learners were initially slower, had more errors, and took longer to recover their final speed from session one. It is believed that dual-task learners suffered from a lack of contextual cues encoded under the dual-task condition in the learning session. Performance advantages gained by the dual-task learners over the single-task learners were eventually recovered with a minimum of practice. Implications are discussed for the use of dual-task methods for assessment of automatic processing and as an educational tool to promote higher-order learning. Considerations for the sequencing of activities in lessons and curriculum are discussed in terms of mastery and automaticity.