Efficient Cognitive Operations Predict Skill Acquisition

Abstract The present study examined the relationship between performance on the ALTM task and improvement in Stroop task performance across trials. Prior research indicated that the ALTM task may be capturing individual differences in facilitation of procedural memory but has often been confounded with long-term semantic priming due to the nature of the task. The Stroop task was chosen because related semantic information is largely irrelevant to performance. Path analysis revealed that ALTM task performance accounted for 11.3% of the variance in improvement in color–word Stroop improvement over two sessions. No other hypothesized relationships were significant in the path model. Results are discussed in light of the apparent relationship between ALTM task performance and an individual's ability to acquire new procedural memory traces. Implications of these findings are discussed and future directions for continued research are proposed.