STIGLER, JAMES W.; NUSBAUM, HOWARD C.; and CHALIP, LAURENCE. Developmental Changes in Speed of Processing: Central Limiting Mechanism or Skill Transfer? CHILD DEVELOPMENT, 1988, 59, 1144-1153. In this article we examine Kail's claim that similarity in developmental speed-ofprocessing curves for 2 tasks indicates that performance on a wide range of cognitive tasks is constrained by the growth of a central limiting mechanism. We argue that the "specific learning" hypothesis, which Kail rejects, does not consider the role of transfer of learning between tasks, and thus assumes that domain specificity of learning implies complete domain independence. We demonstrate, through simulations, that the operation of a central limiting mechanism is neither sufficient nor necessary to generate the curves observed by Kail. 3 alternative models of skill transfer are proposed, and the ability of each model to generate data similar to Kail's is demonstrated. It is concluded that the types of data collected by Kail are essentially incapable of identifying taskspecific and task-general constraints on performance.
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