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- Title
Practice makes transfer of motor skills imperfect.
- Authors
Boutin, Arnaud; Badets, Arnaud; Salesse, Robin; Fries, Udo; Panzer, Stefan; Blandin, Yannick
- Abstract
We investigated the practice-effects on motor skill transfer and the associated representational memory changes that occur during the within-practice and between-practice phases. In two experiments, participants produced extension-flexion movements with their dominant right arm for a limited or prolonged practice session arranged in either a single- or multi-session format. We tested the ability of participants to transfer the original pattern (extrinsic transformation) or the mirrored one (intrinsic transformation) to the non-dominant left arm, 10 min and 24 h after the practice sessions. Results showed that practice induces rapid motor skill improvements that are non-transferable irrespective of the amount of acquisition trials. Furthermore, the extrinsic component of the skill develops early and remains the dominant coding system during practice. Conversely, we found distinct between-practice memory changes: a limited practice induces an off-line development of the extrinsic component, whereas a prolonged practice session subserves the off-line development of the intrinsic component (Experiment 2). We provided further evidence that the long-term representation of the motor skill also depends on the nature of the practice session itself: the parsing of practice into multiple sessions narrows the effector-transfer capacities in comparison to a single session (Experiment 1). These findings yield theoretical and practical implications that are discussed in the context of recent motor skill learning models.
- Subjects
MOTOR ability; MOTOR learning; COMPARATIVE studies; PSYCHOLOGY of learning; MEMORY; SOCIAL context
- Publication
Psychological Research, 2012, Vol 76, Issue 5, p611
- ISSN
0340-0727
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1007/s00426-011-0355-2