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Practice to an asymptote?
1a Department of Psychology , New Mexico State University.
Journal of Motor Behavior
|August 15, 2013
Summary
Even after extensive practice, performance may not stabilize, indicating ongoing learning or sequential effects. This challenges the assumption of reaching a performance asymptote in experimental designs.
Area of Science:
- Cognitive Psychology
- Experimental Psychology
- Human Performance Studies
Background:
- Experimental designs often assume performance stabilization after prolonged practice.
- This assumption is critical for methodologies aiming to eliminate practice-related confounds.
Purpose of the Study:
- To empirically test the assumption that performance stabilizes after extensive practice.
- To investigate the presence and nature of sequential effects in prolonged learning tasks.
Main Methods:
- Repeated measurements of a single subject (S) on constant tasks.
- Each task was assessed in a separate series of extensive practice trials.
Main Results:
- Significant learning or sequential effects persisted even after thousands of practice trials.
- Observed effects could be transient, disappearing and reappearing across days.
Conclusions:
- The concept of "practice to an asymptote" is questionable for eliminating sequential effects.
- Prolonged practice does not guarantee performance stabilization, impacting experimental validity.
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