Acquisition & Retention of Basic Components of Skill

1. Army Research Office Grant W9112NF-05-1-0153 Training Knowledge and Skills for the Networked Battlefield Acquisition & Retention of Basic Components of Skill Robert W. Proctor and Motonori Yamaguchi

2. Acquisition & Retention of Basic Components of Skill • Use basic tasks that isolate the perceptual, cognitive, and motor components of skill. • Examine factors that influence acquisition and retention of these skill components. • Goal: To obtain evidence for basic principles of skill acquisition that can be applied to more complex task environments.

3. Acquisition & Retention of Basic Components of Skill • Initial focus on response selection • This is our area of primary expertise • Response selection is the aspect of information processing that benefits most from training (Welford, 1976) • Emphasis on stimulus-response compatibility because it is a pure measure of response-selection efficiency • S-R compatibility proper • Simon effect

4. Transfer of Newly Acquired Associations • The new procedures acquired from training can affect performance when transferred to a different task or environment. • Important to determine how specific this transfer is. • Can get not only quantitative but also qualitative changes • Focusing on the wrong aspect of training will not help • Generalization can occur if people understand the deep structure of the task

5. Influence of a Prior Incompatible Location Mapping on the Simon Effect • Practice with an incompatible mapping and transfer to a pure Simon task Practice Session Transfer Session Green Red

6. Influence of a Prior Incompatible Location Mapping on the Simon Effect • Proctor and Lu (1999) • Practiced with an incompatible mapping (310 trials per day) for 3 days and transferred to a Simon task (600 trials) • The Simon effect reversed to -24 ms • Vu, Proctor, & Urcuioli (2003) • Practiced 72 trials with an incompatible mapping and transferred to a Simon task with a delay of: • 5 minutes—The Simon effect reversed (-9 ms) • One week—The Simon effect reversed (-21 ms)

7. What is Learned? • Associations between specific stimuli and responses? • More abstract, “rule-like” procedures? • Evaluated by crossing practice and transfer dimensions • Practice: vertical or horizontal • Transfer: horizontal

8. Design Practice Dimension Transfer Dimension • Horizontal Horizontal • Vertical Green Red

9. Results- Transfer to Horizontal Simon Task Practice Dimension Practice TrialsHorizontalVertical Control 18* 72 3 15* 600 -18* 2 *denotes that the effect was significant at the .05 level

10. Generalization Across Stimulus Modalities • Transfer session: Auditory Simon task • Practice session: Incompatible mapping of left-right auditory or visual stimuli to left-right keypresses • A prior study with 72 practice trials suggested no transfer effect to auditory task • Varied amount of practice: 0 (control), 72, 300, or 600 trials

11. Results- Transfer to Auditory Simon Task Practice Dimension Practice TrialsAuditoryVisual Control 47* 72 41* 42* 300 14* 45* 600 16* 37* *denotes that the effect was significant at the .05 level

12. Training with Mixed Mappings and Tasks • Effects of having to maintain multiple associations concurrently • Mixed compatible and incompatible mappings: • Longer RT overall • Benefit for compatible mapping largely eliminated • Does this finding generalize to a simulated environment?

15. Mixed Mappings and Tasks • Task: • Fly simulated aircraft, maintaining altitude • While flying, squares appear on the top right or top left of the screen • Green square: Turn yoke in that direction • Red square: Turn yoke in opposite direction • Four trial blocks • Pure compatible • Pure incompatible • Mixed compatible and incompatible (2 blocks)

18. Mixed Mappings and Tasks 56 85

19. Research Plans • Basic Components of Skill • Transfer of newly acquired associations • Training with mixed mappings and tasks • Performance of multiple tasks • Integration with Other Work • Training Principles (e.g., specificity of training; procedural reinstatement) • Predictive Modeling using ACT-R and other models