Patterns of interference in sequence learning and prism adaptation inconsistent with the consolidation hypothesis

The studies reported here used an interference paradigm to determine whether a long-term consolidation process (i.e., one lasting from several hours to days) occurs in the teaming of two implicit motor skills, teaming of a movement sequence and teaming of a visuo-motor mapping. Subjects learned one skill and were tested on that skill 48 h later. Between the teaming session and test session, some subjects trained on a second skill. The amount of time between the teaming of the two skills varied for different subjects. In both the teaming of a movement sequence and the teaming of a visuo-motor mapping, we found that remote memories were susceptible to interference, but the passage of time did not afford protection from interference. These results are inconsistent with the long-term consolidation of these motor skills. A possible difference between these tasks and those that do show long-term consolidation is that the present tasks are not dynamic motor skills.