Individual Differences in Skill Acquisition: Information Processing Efficiency and the Development of Automaticity

Abstract : Results are reported for a series of 13 studies examining individual differences in information processing efficiency. The tasks used represented different content domains and levels of processing complexity. Measures of information processing speed showed little relationship to each other and/or standardized ability measures. The results are considered relative to issues of assessing (a) an individual's current levels of information processing efficiency, and (b) movement toward more automatic or efficient processing levels. Assessment of the latter is problematic and may require complex tasks performed over intervals of time longer than 2-5 hours. Finally, standardized ability measures only partially reflect an individual's current levels of processing efficiency. Keywords: Abilities, Aptitudes, Automaticity, Individual differences, Information processing, Intelligence, Skill acquisition.