EFFECTS OF PART-TIME TRAINING ON MEMORY SET UNITIZATION AND RETENTIONOF MEMORY-DEPENDENT SKILLED SEARCH

Two experiments were conducted to examine the effects of part-task tra ining on the acquisition and retention of a memory-dependent skill. Pa rticipants received extensive practice on a semantic category, memory/ visual search task in one of three training conditions. To assess the effects of part-task training on memory element unitization, subjects trained on one third, one half, or all of the memory set elements duri ng any given training session. Transfer tests requiring whole-task per formance provided one index of training effectiveness. The results sug gest that consistent memory sets can be unitized even if part-task tra ining is used. Indeed, part-task training was as effective as whole-ta sk training when immediate transfer was assessed. Part-task training p roduced retention performance equivalent to whole-task training when r etention performance was determined by both target and distractor lear ning. Retention performance was superior for part-task training compar ed with whole-task training when performance was based on only target learning.