Questioning Implicit Motor Learning as Instantiated by the Pursuit-Tracking Task

Abstract

The effect of concurrent visual feedback on the implicit learning of repeated segments in a task of pursuit tracking has been tested. Although this feedback makes it possible to regulate the positional error during the movement, it could also induce negative guidance effects. To test this hypothesis, a first set of participants (N=42) were assigned to two groups, which performed either the standard pursuit-tracking task based on the experimental paradigm of Pew ( 1974 ; group F-ST), or a task called "movement reproduction" in which the feedback was suppressed (group noF-ST). A second set of participants (N=26) performed in the same feedback condition groups but in a dual-task situation (F-DT and noF-DT; Experiment 2). The results appear to confirm our predictions since the participants in groups without feedback, contrary to those in groups with feedback, succeeded with practice in differentiating their performances as a function of the nature of the segments (repeated or nonrepeated) both in simple (Experiment 1) and in dual-task (Experiment 2) situations. These experiments indicate that the feedback in the pursuit-tracking task induces a guidance function potentially resulting in an easiness tracking that prevents the participants from learning the repetition.