Procedural Memory - Acquisition of Skill

Acquisition of Skill

The acquisition of skill requires practice. Merely repeating a task alone, however, does not ensure the acquisition of a skill. Skill acquisition is achieved when an observed behaviour has changed due to experience or practice. This is known as learning and is not directly observable. The information processing model, which incorporates this idea of experience, proposes that skills develop from the interaction of four components central to information processing. These components include: processing speed, the rate at which information is processed in our processing system; breadth of declarative knowledge, the size of an individual's factual information store; breadth of procedural skill, the ability to perform the actual skill; and processing capacity, synonymous with working memory. The processing capacity is of importance to procedural memory because through the process of proceduralization an individual stores procedural memory. This improves skill usage by linking environmental cues with appropriate responses.

One model for understanding skill acquisition was proposed by Fitts (1954) and his colleagues. This model proposed the idea that learning was possible through the completion of various stages. The stages involved include:

• Cognitive phase
• Associative phase
• Autonomous phase (also called the procedural phase)