The processing of knowledge of results information for a serial-motor task

This study was designed to consider the effect of the length of and the type of activity during the post-KR interval on the acquisition of a serial positioning task. Male subjects (n=105) were assigned to one of seven experimental conditions. Six of these conditions were defined by the combination of three levels of interpolated activity (none, verbal, and tracking) and two levels of post-KR interval length (12 and 60 sec). The seventh condition controlled for interresponse-interval length. Subjects were required to learn three positions, in serial order, on a manual lever across 20 trials. Neither varying the length of the post-KR interval nor introducing interfering activity during that interval affected the rate of acquisition of the task. The potential application of the paralearning hypothesis (Harcum, 1975) is discussed.