Citation

Romano JC, Howard JH, Howard DV. Memory 2010; 1-15.

Affiliation

The Catholic University of America, Washington, DC, USA.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2010, Informa - Taylor and Francis Group)

DOI

10.1080/09658211003742680

PMID

20408037

PMCID

PMC2894701

Abstract

Procedural skills such as riding a bicycle and playing a musical instrument play a central role in daily life. Such skills are learned gradually and are retained throughout life. The present study investigated 1-year retention of procedural skill in a version of the widely used serial reaction time task (SRTT) in young and older motor-skill experts and older controls in two experiments. The young experts were college-age piano and action video-game players, and the older experts were piano players. Previous studies have reported sequence-specific skill retention in the SRTT as long as 2 weeks but not at 1 year. Results indicated that both young and older experts and older non-experts revealed sequence-specific skill retention after 1 year with some evidence that general motor skill was retained as well. These findings are consistent with theoretical accounts of procedural skill learning such as the procedural reinstatement theory as well as with previous studies of retention of other motor skills.

Language: en