Year-end Sale % OFF 
Abstract
Performance improvements during early human motor skill learning are suggested to be driven by short periods of rest during practice, at the scale of seconds. To reveal the unknown mechanisms behind these “micro-offline” gains, we leveraged the sampling power offered by online crowdsourcing (cumulative N over all experiments = 951). First, we replicated the original in-lab findings, demonstrating generalizability to subjects learning the task in their daily living environment (N = 389). Second, we show that offline improvements during rest are equivalent when significantly shortening practice period duration, thus confirming that they are not a result of recovery from performance fatigue (N = 118). Third, retroactive interference immediately after each practice period reduced the learning rate relative to interference after passage of time (N = 373), indicating stabilization of the motor memory at a microscale of several seconds. Finally, we show that random termination of practice periods did not impact offline gains, ruling out a contribution of predictive motor slowing (N = 71). Altogether, these results demonstrate that micro-offline gains indicate rapid, within-seconds consolidation accounting for early skill learning.
Highlights
Learning of a new motor skill unfolds fast over the course of a single training session[1]
While performance improvements are typically linked to practice itself, recently it was shown that a substantial proportion of early skill acquisition happens during short rest periods in the range of several seconds that are interspersed with practice[2]
Micro-offline gains speak to the contrary: behaviorally distinct stages of memory formation may not have isomorphic counterparts in brain occurring predominantly during rest rather than during practice plasticity but arise from a continuum of overlapping processes in (Experiment 1)
Summary
Learning of a new motor skill unfolds fast over the course of a single training session[1]. In the context of early skill learning, it is unknown, whether these short periods of rest, interspersed between practice bouts in an initial training session, allow for stabilization of the memory trace. Crowdsourcing has become a widely used, well-tested and versatile tool in social and cognitive sciences to investigate personality, decision making, visual perception and recognition, and memory formation[18] It is used in replication studies[19] and has recently been adapted for motor learning research[20]. We first tested the feasibility of studying human sequence learning dynamics in the web-based environment This experiment allowed to test the replicability of micro-offline gains during short periods of rest following each practice period in early human motor skill learning. In a third and fourth experiment, we experimentally manipulated the motor slowing effect to disambiguate the presence of consolidation mechanisms acting at the level of seconds
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
