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Effect Of The Specificity Of Training Delivery On Skill Acquisition And Transfer, Suzanne Mary Matthews

Theses : Honours

Past research (e.g., Brewer, 1998) has shown that when people learn to solve simple formulae where elements are repeated over and over again, the greater the degree of repetition, the less transferable the skill. The current study tested one explanation for this observation; that training conditions involving little stimulus variation encourage the development of specific skills with low transferability. These habit-encouraging conditions were compared with a habit-breaking manipulation that involved presentation of unfamiliar stimuli throughout training. Participants were randomly assigned to one of 2 groups, the habit-encouraging and habit-breaking groups. The groups had 22 and 20 participants respectively. Participants were …