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

How the difficulty of initial training influences the acquisition and transfer of strategic processing skills and memory for processed stimuli was examined in 3 experiments. Participants were asked to discriminate between similar or dissimilar random polygon stimuli. Participants were asked to discriminate between novel transfer polygons; this was followed by a recognition memory task. Results suggest that the difficulty of initial training influences strategic skill acquisition. Strategies acquired during training are applied at transfer regardless of their effectiveness for processing transfer stimuli. This is true even when participants are given feedback indicating that their processing strategy is ineffective. It is argued that skill acquisition is influenced by the acquisition of both stimulus-specific knowledge and strategic skills, and that the strategic skills acquired serve to optimize processing.