Abstract
We examined the influence of the hand employed in sensorimotor learning on the acquired sequence knowledge in a serial reaction time task. Right-handed subjects trained either with the dominant or with the nondominant hand sequences of finger postures in response to a corresponding stimulus sequence. In the course of training, they were repeatedly asked to switch to the opposite hand, either responding to the original stimulus sequence with nonhomologues fingers or to the mirror-ordered sequence of stimuli with homologues fingers. When the right hand was used at acquisition, transfer to the same stimulus sequence increased with practice. In contrast, when the left hand was trained, transfer to the homologues finger sequence increased with practice. The results indicate qualitative differences in the acquired sequence knowledge controlling the dominant and the nondominant arm systems.
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Notes
Possible interactions between skillfulness, specific transfer conditions and expected differences in learning and motor control processes between two arm systems are a-priory difficult to predict without strict assumptions about the nature of interaction between the arm systems. For instance, the preferred hand is typically assumed to be more skillful. However, if this advantage is restricted to a special form of sensorimotor control, such as to effector-independent processes, performance differences between the parallel and mirror transfer conditions may already emerge at the beginning of training (if right hand is used in the transfer conditions). In this case these differences would not be directly related to learning of a sequence during experiment. Such an effect may not necessarily be expected, if the nondominant hand is used during transfer conditions and if it can be assumed to be less skillful in another form of control and/or learning. The impact of these or similar learning irrelevant interactions on the results may be, in our opinion, avoided, or at least reduced by focusing on learning-dependent changes in transfer performance within each type of transfer conditions.
Note: only the data of regular learning blocks were included in this analysis.
Because the last block of the experiment was always a transfer block, its influence on learning performance could not be evaluated. However, due to the counterbalancing of blocks across participants, the last block was of the parallel type for one half and of the mirror type for the other half of subjects.
In the study of Ward et al (1989) this effect was only reported for left-handers.
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This research was supported by Grant HO 1301/12-1 awarded to J. Hoffmann by the German Research Council (DFG).
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Kirsch, W., Hoffmann, J. Asymmetrical intermanual transfer of learning in a sensorimotor task. Exp Brain Res 202, 927–934 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00221-010-2184-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00221-010-2184-8