Learning to Combine High Variability With High Precision: Lack of Transfer to a Different Task

Abstract

The authors studied effects of practicing a 4-finger accurate force production task on multifinger coordination quantified within the uncontrolled manifold hypothesis. During practice, task instability was modified by changing visual feedback gain based on accuracy of performance. The authors also explored the retention of these effects, and their transfer to a prehensile task. Subjects practiced the force production task for 2 days. After the practice, total force variability decreased and performance became more accurate. In contrast, variance of finger forces showed a tendency to increase during the first practice session while in the space of finger modes (hypothetical commands to fingers) the increase was under the significance level. These effects were retained for 2 weeks. No transfer of these effects to the prehensile task was seen, suggesting high specificity of coordination changes. The retention of practice effects without transfer to a different task suggests that further studies on a more practical method of improving coordination are needed.

The effects of concurrent biomechanical biofeedback on rowing performance at different stroke rates

“…This supports both the guidance hypothesis (Salmoni et al, 1984) and the hypothesised specificity effect of such interventions (Blandin et al, 2008;Proteau et al, 1992;Ranganathan & Newell, 2009). The findings of this study show that the intensity of exercise performed whilst complying with biofeedback does influence the ability of trained rowers to transfer technique changes from acquisition to more functionally relevant tasks (Wu et al, 2015). Given the specificity of the newly acquired coordination changes (Ranganathan & Newell, 2009), such patterns appear explicitly linked to the conditions under which they are learnt.…”

Motor abundance and control structure in the golf swing

“…If there is a significantly greater proportion of V UCM then the joint configuration is said to have synergy, in that the abundant DOF in the body are used to minimise the variance in the outcome of the skill . This method has been used to investigate pointing (Domkin, Laczko, Djupsjöbacka, Jaric, & Latash, 2005;Domkin, Laczko, Jaric, Johansson, & Latash, 2002), shooting (Scholz, Schöner, & Latash, 2000), sitto-stand (Reisman, Scholz, & Schöner, 2002;Scholz, Reisman, & Schöner, 2001;Scholz & Schöner, 1999), finger force production (Kapur, Zatsiorsky, & Latash, 2010;Martin, Terekhov, Latash, & Zatsiorsky, 2013;Park, Sun, Zatsiorsky, & Latash, 2011;Scholz, Kang, Patterson, & Latash, 2003;Wu, Pazin, Zatsiorsky & Latash, 2012;Wu, Truglio, Zatsiorsky & Latash, 2015), throwing (Yang & Scholz, 2005) and stone knapping tasks (Rein, Bril, & Nonaka, 2013). Results of these studies have differed with respect to practice, skill level and phase of the skill.…”

Intact finger representation within primary sensorimotor cortex of Musician’s Dystonia

“…For example, over-trained skills are likely to have features of encoding that are distinct to every day skills such as extended planning horizons/sequences and a narrow capacity to generalise to other tasks of shifts in the original tasks demands. 42, 43 What is clear is that our results motivate the search for the neural correlates of task-specific dystonia away from generic digit maps in primary sensorimotor cortex. Such a view also fits with an expanding literature which emphases that task-specific dystonia is associated with changes across a broad network and that compared to other subtypes of dystonia there is greater involvement of sensorimotor cortical areas such as the premotor and parietal cortex 44 .…”