FDMII, "muscle-memory", yes, we appear to be considering the same aspects.
“… a form of procedural memory that involves consolidating a specific motor task into memory through repetition. This process decreases the need for attention and creates maximum efficiency within the motor and memory systems. Examples of muscle memory are found in many everyday activities that become automatic and improve with practice, such as riding a bicycle, playing a musical instrument” (Wiki).
E.g. novice and expert behaviour; where an expert has achieved a skill level which can be undertaken with the minimum of conscious effort. I would also include cognitive skills, not just muscle.
‘Transfer’ is obviously not the skill, but could represent the mechanism of acquiring the skill. This would include the willingness to learn and the process of learning, paying attention, memory, and relating one aspect with another, and situations yet to be encountered. These are important aspects, perhaps missing in an automated world.
With respect to flying, expertise may take considerable time to acquire and then may only relate to a particular situation or those which can be associated with previous experiences. The latter is a process of learning, retention, and projection across scenarios which may be a hall mark of expertise.
Expertise is not a requirement for flying, but it should be everyone’s goal. However, flying does require proficiency, matching the skill level to the task; thus whilst novice pilots are safe – minimum training standard, they may not be as capable in extreme situations as they lack a sufficient range of experiences or the skills of projection and association.
I am less convinced about the need to keep practicing, yet practice is required to achieve expert behaviour in normal operations.
However in rare situations the required skill level need not be very high; it has to match the task, safe, but not perfect (the task has changed). Also, these skills may not be so well practiced, and also in this sense it’s mainly a cognitive skill – knowing what to do vs how to do it; this depends on understanding the situation.
I’m not a musician, but comparing a well prepared expert performance of a major work, with a sudden requirement to play the national anthem for a visiting head of state. Both a novice or expert could follow the new score, but the difference might be the manner in which an expert plays the music (finesse).
Of course this is preceded by the need to select the correct score for that country, where both an expert and novice could be mistaken.
