Transfer of instances in cognitive skill learning: adult age differences.

Two experiments assessed the utilization of pretrained problem-solution associations (i.e., instances) in memory-based cognitive skill learning in younger and older adults. In Experiment 1, participants were given practice with repeated alphabet-arithmetic problems and then trained on a compound skill-learning task that incorporated the pretrained alphabet-arithmetic items. In Experiment 2, participants were pretrained with compound problems, and then trained on just the alphabet-arithmetic items that were part of the compound problems. In both experiments, utilization of pretrained instances was much greater for younger adults than for older adults. These findings can be taken to imply that failure to retrieve and apply reoccurring instances is a primary source of age-related deficits in the transfer of cognitive skill learning across task situations.