CONTEXTUAL DEPENDENCIES DURING PERCEPTUAL-MOTOR SKILL ACQUISITION - GONE BUT NOT FORGOTTEN

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.