Fig. 3: Content of generalization during early skill learning.

Experiment 3 evaluated the content of generalization of skill A to four different skill Bs (n = 537; see Supplementary Table 3 for demographics). a Task: Each skill B shared with skill A different features: a similar parsing cue structure (sequence started and ended with the same number, i.e., 2-3-1-4-2; PARSING), similar transitions (i.e., 2-4-1-4-3, transitions 2-4 and 4-1; TRANSITION), a combination of similar transitional/ordinal features (i.e., 2-4-3-2-4; O + T) or a repetition of skill A (i.e., 4-1-3-2-4; SAME_A). b Performance in the first trial of skill A and testing of the four groups performing different types of skill B (grey: PARSING; green: TRANSITION; yellow: O + T; purple: SAME_A; mean ± s.e.m.). Note the similar performance in skill A across groups. Performance in all 5 trials of skill B are shown in Supplementary Fig. 7. c Skill at the onset of skill B. Onset of B was highest in the group that continued performance of skill A (SAME_A group). Note that skill at the onset of skill B in the SAME_A and PARSING groups are significantly larger than the TRANSITION group. d Change in skill from the end of skill A to the onset of skill B (i.e., \({{\rm{Gen}}}_{{{\rm{B}}}_{0}-{{\rm{A}}}_{{\rm{f}}}}\)). \({{\rm{Gen}}}_{{{\rm{B}}}_{0}-{{\rm{A}}}_{{\rm{f}}}}\) was highest in the SAME_A group, being significantly greater than the TRANSITION and O + T groups. Note that the SAME_A and PARSING groups showed significant micro-offline gains (i.e., \({{\rm{Gen}}}_{{{\rm{B}}}_{0}-{{\rm{A}}}_{{\rm{f}}}}\)), while the TRANSITION and O + T groups did not. *p < 0.05, where * over individual group plots indicate significant one-sample t-test within-group differences between B₀ and A_f and * between group plots indicate significant Kruskal-Wallis test (pairwise comparison) between-groups differences (Fig. 3c) or one-way ANOVA (pairwise comparison) between-group differences (Fig. 3d).