The development and resiliency of contextual dependencies developed du
ring perceptual-motor skill acquisition was assessed. Incidental aspec
ts of the stimulus used to instigate the production of previously prac
tised typing sequences were manipulated during either an immediate or
delayed retention test. The findings from the immediate test offered f
urther support for the existence of contextual dependent performance f
or perceptual-motor responding. However, the dependency was attenuated
by using a delayed retention test. Experiment 2 pursued two alternati
ve explanations for the diminished dependency effect revealed in Exper
iment 1. In Experiment 2 some subjects were explicitly encouraged to r
einstate aspects of the incidental contextual information that was pre
sent during training prior to administration of a delayed test, The de
pendency present only in the immediate test in Experiment 1 reemerged
after contextual reinstatement. The present data are discussed with re
spect to the inclusion of incidental contextual stimuli as part of the
long-term sensorimotor memory representation.