Abstract
Modifying established motor skills is a challenging endeavor due to proactive interference from undesired old to desired new actions, calling for high levels of cognitive control. Motor restrictions may facilitate the modification of motor skills by rendering undesired responses physically impossible, thus reducing demands to response inhibition. Here we studied behavioral and EEG effects of rule changes to typing in skilled touch-typists. The respective rule change—typing without using the left index finger—was either implemented per instruction only or with an additional motor restriction. In both groups, the rule change elicited delays and more errors in typing, indicating the occurrence of proactive interference. While stimulus-locked ERPs did not exhibit prominent effects of rule change or group, response-locked ERPs revealed that the time courses of preparatory brain activity preceding typing responses depended on the presence of motor restriction. Although further research is necessary to corroborate our findings, they indicate a novel brain correlate that represents changes in inhibitory response preparation induced by short-term motor restrictions.
Highlights
Modifying a well-established, pre-existing behavior or skill is usually difficult as interference effects may impede this change process (Panzer 2002; Sperl and Cañal-Bruland 2020a)
The 2 × 2 ANOVA on Interkeystroke Interval (IKSI) for critical keys in the first position revealed a main effect for block [F(1, 18) = 49.28, p < 0.001, ηp2 = 0.73], which was present in the analogous ANOVA on IKSI for critical keys in the fifth position [F(1, 18) = 52.14, p < 0.001, ηp2 = 0.74]
IKSI increased by 232 ms (SE = 6 ms) in the additional motor restriction (AMR) group and by 399 ms (SE = 7 ms) in the verbal instruction (VI) group for first position keystrokes
Summary
Modifying a well-established, pre-existing behavior or skill is usually difficult as interference effects may impede this change process (Panzer 2002; Sperl and Cañal-Bruland 2020a). Proactive interference arises due to automatisms that are prone to trigger a habitual but undesired response. Since behavioral changes often encompass the motor system, the examination of motor skill changes provides a relevant and insightful testbed. In this domain, especially prepotent response inhibition has recently been reported to play a critical role in change processes (Sperl et al 2021a, b; Sperl and Cañal-Bruland 2020b). Prepotent response inhibition is defined as a subdimension of inhibition denoting the ability to suppress strong prepotent, but undesired action tendencies (Friedman and Miyake 2004)
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