A theory of practice in high-proficiency skills such as speech production is proposed, involving activation of a hierarchy of nodes in serial order within an output system of behavior. Increased flexibility with practice, response mechanism transfer in skills, motor equivalence, automaticity, and speed-accuracy trade-off are discussed. (Author/CM)

An associative model of serial learning is described based on the assumption that the effective stimulus for a serial-list item is generated by adaptation-level coding of the item's ordinal position. How the model can generate predictions of aspects of serial-learning data is illustrated. (SLD)

Ratcliff's theory of memory retrieval which posits parallel processing and Sternberg's serial processing explanation of memory scanning are reviewed and contrasted. Discrepancy between the two theories may arise because they focus on different aspects of the data. If scanning without comparisons takes place, the two views may be reconciled.…