Optimizing the Long-Term Retention of Skills: Structural and Analytic Approaches to Skill Maintenance. Annual Report, 1991-1992.

Abstract

This research program seeks to identify the characteristics of knowledge and skill which are most resistant to decay due to disuse. The general goal is to elucidate principles which will specify those aspects of a complex skill that resist decay over periods of disuse and how they are distinguishable from more fragile components. The research program can be divided into two complementary parts. The first part is concerned with describing the structure of existing skills. The second part is concerned with experimental analysis of factors influencing and improving retention of skill components. Our work encompassed a large number of different studies on a wide range of tasks, including tank gunner skills, Morse code reception, color naming, instrument panel scanning, mental calculation, memory for instances of categories, target detection, data entry, components of memory for lists, components of memory for schedules, and vocabulary retention. Each of these tasks provided a test bed for our major theoretical hypothesis that the durability of memory depends critically on the extent to which learning procedures are reinstated at test.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Apr 01, 1999
Accession Number
ADA362103

Entities

People

  • Alice F. Healy
  • K. A. Ericsson
  • Lyle E. Bourne Jr.

Organizations

  • University of Colorado Boulder

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Biomedical

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Acquisition
  • Cognition
  • Cognitive Science
  • Computer Programs
  • Detection
  • Instrument Panels
  • Language
  • Learning
  • Morse Code
  • Psychology
  • Reaction Time
  • Social Sciences
  • Students
  • Target Detection
  • Training
  • United States
  • Vocabulary

Readers

  • Instructional Design and Training Evaluation.
  • Systems Analysis and Design