Sequence learning in Parkinson's disease: the effect of spatial stimulus-response compatibility

Patients with Parkinson's disease (PD) have repeatedly demonstrated reduced sequence-specific learning effects in serial reaction time tasks (SRTs). Previous research with PD patients has mainly employed the 'classical' SRT task, involving a spatially compatible assignment of stimuli and responses. From cognitive research, it is known that spatial compatibility triggers rapid, automatic responses in the direction of the stimulus. Automatic responding has shown to be disinhibited in PD patients and may therefore interfere with stimulus anticipation during the learning process. The aim of the present study was to test this hypothesis by investigating if reduced sequence-specific learning depends on spatial stimulus-response compatibility. PD patients and age-matched controls were examined either with an SRT variant involving central stimulus presentation, thereby preventing automatic linking of stimulus and response locations, or with a spatially compatible SRT task. Patients showed reduced sequence-specific learning effects only when the stimulus-response assignment was spatially compatible. This pattern of results confirms the hypothesis that sequence learning deficits in PD may result from a predominance of automatic response activation over learning-based stimulus anticipations during the learning phase.