The Absence of Orienting-Task Specificity in Psychomotor Learning

Abstract

The present experiment attempted to replicate the orienting task-specificity phenomenon demonstrated by Ho and Shea (1979). The failure to verify their findings creates a serious problem for research on incidental psychomotor learning. The lack of an acceptable theoretical framework to explain either Ho and Shea's results or the present findings, coupled with an extremely limited data-base, leaves many questions. The conclusion is that orienting task-specificity is not a robust phenomenon in psychomotor learning.