DISSOCIATED CONTEXTUAL INTERFERENCE EFFECTS IN CHILDREN AND ADULTS

24 7-yr.-old children and 24 university-age adults practiced a ballist ic aiming task under either low contextual interference (blocked pract ice) or high contextual interference (random practice). All subjects p erformed 90 acquisition trials, followed by 20 transfer trials and 15 retention trials. Similar to previous findings, the adults performed t he acquisition trials better under blocked than under random condition s, yet performed the retention and transfer tests better after random than blocked practice. No differences in acquisition were found betwee n blocked and random practice conditions for the children; nevertheles s, the random group performed the retention and transfer tests better than the blocked group. The results are discussed in relation to appli ed and theoretical issues of contextual interference.