Orienting task specificity in incidental motor learning

The manipulation of the retention of a linear movement by means of different orienting tasks in an incidental learning paradigm was investigated. Subjects were presented with a target position followed by a different nontarget position on each of four presentation trials. After the presentation trials subjects were required to recall the target and nontarget positions. One group made verbal estimates of the distance between the target and nontarget positions, another group discriminated between the target and nontarget positions, while no verbal responses were required for a third group. The verbal-response groups, while not differing from each other, had less error at recall than the nonverbalizing group. These findings were discussed in terms of the levels of processing framework for memory research (Craik & Lockhart, 1972).