Kinematic Strategies Underlying Improvement in the Acquisition of a Sequential Finger Task with Self-Generated vs. Cued Repetition Training

Jason Friedman,Maria Korman,Paul L Gribble

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0052063

Abstract

Many motor skills, such as typing, consist of articulating simple movements into novel sequences that are executed faster and smoother with practice. Dynamics of re-organization of these movement sequences with multi-session training and its dependence on the amount of self-regulation of pace during training is not yet fully understood. In this study, participants practiced a sequence of key presses. Training sessions consisted of either externally (Cued) or self-initiated (Uncued) training. Long-term improvements in performance speed were mainly due to reducing gaps between finger movements in both groups, but Uncued training induced higher gains. The underlying kinematic strategies producing these changes and the representation of the trained sequence differed significantly across subjects, although net gains in speed were similar. The differences in long-term memory due to the type of training and the variation in strategies between subjects, suggest that the different neural mechanisms may subserve the improvements observed in overall performance.

Highlights

Many motor skills, such as typing or piano playing, evolve with the ability to articulate finger movements into novel sequences that are executed faster and smoother with practice
Our approach, combining behavioural measurements and an analysis of movements and their temporal structure, in the context of long-term training, allowed us to address the question of what are the substrates that underlie modification of a novel motor sequence representation
Our results indicate that the knowledge gained from a training experience undergoes a number of important qualitative and quantitative changes that are dependent on the amount of self-regulation during the training sessions

Summary

Introduction

Many motor skills, such as typing or piano playing, evolve with the ability to articulate finger movements into novel sequences that are executed faster and smoother with practice. Self-regulation during training was only recently recognized as an important variable in various types of motor learning experiments and aspects of the corresponding practice structures These were tested in learner control over the frequency of augmented feedback presentation for both knowledge of performance [27] and knowledge of results [28]; frequency of model presentation for the learning of a badminton serve [29] as well as a basketball jump shot [30]; the task ordering of multiple tasks [31] and the online regulation of feedback during a continuous perceptual-motor task [32]. On the third experimental day we tested the ability of participants to generalize their experience under different transfer task conditions

Materials and Methods

Results

Discussion