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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2018 Feb 19.
Published in final edited form as: Curr Biol. 2015 Dec 17;26(1):100–105. doi: 10.1016/j.cub.2015.11.035

Figure 2. Learning transfer from a word-list memory task to a motor skill task, and its link to the interference of word recall.

Figure 2

(a) There was transfer from the word-list to the subsequent motor task when the tasks shared the same structure shown by the enhanced motor skill at testing compared to when the memory tasks had different structures (unpaired t-test, t(26) = 2.96, p = 0.006; bar plots display, mean ± sem). (b) The transfer of learning to the motor skill correlated with the decrease in serial recall (F(1,12) = 5.42, p =0.038, R = 0.558). This correlation remained even when the when the participant showing the greatest motor skill was removed from the analysis (F(1,11) = 6.2, p = 0.03, R = 0.6), and even without this participant there continued to be greater motor skill when the memory tasks had the same rather than different structures (unpaired t-test, t(25) = 2.9, p = 0.008). By contrast, when there was no learning transfer, when the two tasks had different structures, we found that the decrease in serial recall was not correlated with motor skill (F(1,12)<0.1, p = 0.994, R= 0.002). (c) Inserting a 2-hr interval between the memory tasks prevented interference of the word-list task. The decrease in serial recall was a significantly less than when the tasks had been performed in quick succession (unpaired t-test, t(26) = 2.7, p = 0.012), and there was no significant change in serial recall between testing and retesting (paired t-test, t(13) = 0.234, p = 0.818). We also modified the order of elements within the tasks to prevent interference of the serial recall. There was a significantly smaller decrease in serial recall than without these changes (unpaired t-test, t(24) = 2.37, p = 0.026), and there was no significant change in serial recall between testing and retesting (paired t-test, t(11) = 0.277, p = 0.787). Preventing interference, using either of these methods, also prevented learning transfer to the motor skill task. The enhancement of motor skill learning was significantly less with the insertion of the 2-hr delay (unpaired t-test; t(26) = 3.4, p = 0.002) or with the changes to the order of task elements (unpaired t-test; t(24) = 2.89, p = 0.008) than when the unmodified tasks had been performed in quick succession.