Automatic Information Processing and High-Performance Skills: Applications to Training, Transfer, and Retention

Abstract : This report documents a laboratory research effort which investigated automatic information processing theory and high-performance skills training. Training research issues pertaining to skill acquisition, transfer of training, or retention were investigated with analogs of Command and Control (C2) operator tasks in ten experiments. The results of the research indicate that elements of automatic processing theory are applicable to the training of C2 task analogs, suggest some limits on the transfer that can be expected under both aided and non-aided training conditions, and indicate that automatic processes associated with spatial pattern information show no significant decrement over 30-day retention intervals.