The relationship between habits and motor skills in humans

Du, Yue; Krakauer, John W.; Haith, Adrian M.

doi:10.31234/osf.io/9qrgd

Cited by 12 publications

(19 citation statements)

References 96 publications

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“…For instance, motor learning enables babies to acquire walking and talking skills, and athletes to become champions. These motor skills are honed over a lifetime of practice (Crossman, 1959;Du et al, 2021), often demanding tremendous grit and intrinsic motivation (Ryan and Deci, 2000;Duckworth et al, 2007). Fitts and Posner (1979) proposed a highly influential conceptual model of how motor learning progresses through three distinct stages (also see : Welford, 1968;Whiting et al, 1992): cognitive, associative, and autonomous.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Long-Term Motor Learning in the “Wild” With High Volume Video Game Data

Listman

Tsay

Kim

et al. 2021

Front. Hum. Neurosci.

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Motor learning occurs over long periods of practice during which motor acuity, the ability to execute actions more accurately, precisely, and in less time, improves. Laboratory-based studies of motor learning are typically limited to a small number of participants and a time frame of minutes to several hours per participant. There is a need to assess the generalizability of theories and findings from lab-based motor learning studies on larger samples and time scales. In addition, laboratory-based studies of motor learning use relatively simple motor tasks which participants are unlikely to be intrinsically motivated to learn, limiting the interpretation of their findings in more ecologically valid settings (“in the wild”). We studied the acquisition and longitudinal refinement of a complex sensorimotor skill embodied in a first-person shooter video game scenario, with a large sample size (N = 7174, 682,564 repeats of the 60 s game) over a period of months. Participants voluntarily practiced the gaming scenario for up to several hours per day up to 100 days. We found improvement in performance accuracy (quantified as hit rate) was modest over time but motor acuity (quantified as hits per second) improved considerably, with 40–60% retention from 1 day to the next. We observed steady improvements in motor acuity across multiple days of video game practice, unlike most motor learning tasks studied in the lab that hit a performance ceiling rather quickly. Learning rate was a non-linear function of baseline performance level, amount of daily practice, and to a lesser extent, number of days between practice sessions. In addition, we found that the benefit of additional practice on any given day was non-monotonic; the greatest improvements in motor acuity were evident with about an hour of practice and 90% of the learning benefit was achieved by practicing 30 min per day. Taken together, these results provide a proof-of-concept in studying motor skill acquisition outside the confines of the traditional laboratory, in the presence of unmeasured confounds, and provide new insights into how a complex motor skill is acquired in an ecologically valid setting and refined across much longer time scales than typically explored.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Long-Term Motor Learning in the “Wild” With High Volume Video Game Data

Listman

Tsay

Kim

et al. 2021

Front. Hum. Neurosci.

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show abstract

“…Characterizing the ‘strength’ of a habit is further complicated by the fact that multiple component processes/computations may be involved in generating movement, and any one of these processes may become habitual. For instance, one’s ability to select what action to do (e.g., move the cursor to the right) may become habitual independently of one’s ability to execute that action (e.g., stereotyped kinematics of rightward movement; see [21] for a more in-depth discussion of this idea).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…to select what action to do (e.g., move the cursor to the right) may become habitual independently of one's ability to execute that action (e.g., stereotyped kinematics of rightward movement; see [21] for a more in-depth discussion of this idea).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Nevertheless, habits have been hypothesized to be a key aspect of motor skill acquisition, enabling more rapid behavioral responses and freeing up cognitive resources [16][17][18][19][20]. However, the exact relationship between habits and skill remains unclear [21], and progress in our understanding of this relationship is hampered by a dearth of empirical evidence examining how quickly behavior becomes habitual when learning a new motor skill. To a limited extent, behavior which could be interpreted as habits has been studied in continuous control tasks such as reaching under mirror-reversed visual feedback [22,23] or more real-world skills like javelin throwing [24], swimming [25], and weightlifting [26].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Control becomes habitual early on when learning a novel motor skill

Yang

Cowan

Haith

2022

Preprint

Self Cite

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When people perform the same task repeatedly, their behavior becomes habitual, or inflexible to changes in the goals or structure of a task. While habits have been hypothesized to be a key aspect of motor skill acquisition, there has been little empirical work investigating the relationship between skills and habits. To better understand this relationship, we examined whether and when people’s behavior would become habitual as they learned a challenging new motor skill. After up to ten days of practice, we altered the structure of the task to assess whether participants would flexibly adjust their behavior or habitually persist in performing the task the way they originally learned. We found that participants’ behavior became habitual early in practice—after only two days—at which point they were still relatively unskilled. These data demonstrate that motor skills become habitual after relatively little training, but can nevertheless further improve with practice.

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“…Motor learning, the process of acquiring and refining skilled movements, is an essential human capacity (Du et al, 2021;Fitts & Posner, 1979;Kim et al, 2020;Krakauer et al, 2019;Reza Shadmehr et al, 2010). For instance, motor learning enables babies to acquire walking and talking skills, and athletes to become champions.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Long-term Motor Learning in the Wild with High Volume Video Game Data

Listman

Kim

Mackey

et al. 2021

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Motor learning occurs over long periods of practice during which motor acuity (the ability to execute actions more accurately, precisely, and within a shorter amount of time) improves. Laboratory-based motor learning studies are typically limited to a small number of participants and a time frame of minutes to several hours per participant. Thus, there is a need to assess the generalizability of theories and findings from lab-based motor learning studies on much larger samples across longer time scales. In addition, laboratory-based studies of motor learning use relatively simple motor tasks which participants are unlikely to be intrinsically motivated to learn, limiting the interpretation of their findings in more ecologically valid settings. We studied the acquisition and longitudinal refinement of a complex sensorimotor skill embodied in a first-person shooter video game scenario, with a large sample size (N = 7174 participants, 682,564 repeats of the 60 sec game) over a period of months. Participants voluntarily practiced the gaming scenario for as much as several hours per day up to 100 days. We found improvement in performance accuracy (quantified as hit rate) was modest over time but motor acuity (quantified as hits per second) improved considerably, with 40-60% retention from one day to the next. We observed steady improvements in motor acuity across multiple days of video game practice, unlike most motor learning tasks studied in the lab that hit a performance ceiling rather quickly. Learning rate was a nonlinear function of baseline performance level, amount of daily practice, and to a lesser extent, number of days between practice sessions. In addition, we found that the benefit of additional practice on any given day was non-monotonic; the greatest improvements in motor acuity were evident with about an hour of practice and 90% of the learning benefit was achieved by practicing 30 minutes per day. Taken together, these results provide a proof-of-concept in studying motor skill acquisition outside the confines of the traditional laboratory and provide new insights into how a complex motor skill is acquired in an ecologically valid setting and refined across much longer time scales than typically explored.

show abstract

The relationship between habits and motor skills in humans

Cited by 12 publications

References 96 publications

Long-Term Motor Learning in the “Wild” With High Volume Video Game Data

Long-Term Motor Learning in the “Wild” With High Volume Video Game Data

Control becomes habitual early on when learning a novel motor skill

Long-term Motor Learning in the Wild with High Volume Video Game Data

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