The role of processing strategies in the acquisition and transfer of a cognitive skill

How the difficulty of initial training influences the acquisition and trans fer of strategic processing skills and memory for processed stimuli was exa mined in 3 experiments. Participants were asked to discriminate between sim ilar or dissimilar random polygon stimuli. Participants were asked to discr iminate between novel transfer polygons; this was followed by a recognition memory task. Results suggest that the difficulty of initial training influ ences strategic skill acquisition. Strategies acquired during training are applied at transfer regardless of their effectiveness for processing transf er stimuli. This is true even when participants are given feedback indicati ng that their processing strategy is ineffective. It is argued that skill a cquisition is influenced by the acquisition of both stimulus-specific knowl edge and strategic skills, and that the strategic skills acquired serve to optimize processing.