Acquisition of intellectual and perceptual-motor skills

Recent evidence indicates that intellectual and perceptual-motor skills are acquired in fundamentally similar ways. Transfer specificity, generativity , and the use of abstract rules and reflexlike productions are similar in t he two skill domains; brain sites subserving thought processes and perceptu al-motor processes are not as distinct as once thought; explicit and implic it knowledge characterize both kinds of skill; learning rates, training eff ects, and learning stages are remarkably similar for the two skill classes; and imagery, long thought to play a distinctive role in high-level thought , also plays a role in perceptual-motor learning and control. The conclusio n that intellectual skills and perceptual motor skills are psychologically more alike than different accords with the view that all knowledge is perfo rmatory.