Retroactive facilitation and interference in performance on the modified two-hand coordinator.

Abstract : The study demonstrates how the learning of a new skill can interfere with the performance of another skill which has already been learned. Such an effect is called 'retroactive interference'. Six groups of female subjects, ten per group, first attained a prescribed level of proficiency on the standard task of the Modified Two-Hand Coordinator. The five experimental groups then attained different levels of proficiency on the reversed coordinator task, while the control group went without practice of any kind. All groups relearned the standard task under uniform conditions. The results showed, as expected, that the amount of retroactive interference as reflected by losses in proficiency during relearning, depended upon the level of proficiency attained on the reversed task during interpolated learning (IL). There were no indications that differential amounts of retroactive facilitation were developed during IL. This was contrary to expectations. (Author)