Inter-manual transfer and practice: coding of simple motor sequences

Previous research suggests that movements are represented early in practice in visual-spatial coordinates/codes, which are effector independent, and later in practice in motor coordinates/codes (e.g., joint angles, activation patterns), which are effector dependent. In the present experiments, the task was to reproduce 1.3 s patterns of elbow flexions and extensions. An inter-manual transfer paradigm was used in Experiment 1 and an inter-manual practice paradigm was used in Experiment 2. The present results clearly indicated a strong advantage of effector transfer when the motor coordinates available during acquisition were reinstated (Experiment 1) and demonstrate that inter-manual practice with the same motor coordinates results in enhanced retention performance relative to transfer and practice where the same visual-spatial coordinates are used. These results demonstrate that the more effective movement code (motor or visual-spatial) is dependent on the movement sequence characteristics (e.g., difficulty, number of elements, and mode of control [preplanned or on-line]). These results are also interesting because they indicate, contrary to previous findings with more complex movement sequences, that an effective motor code can be developed relatively early in practice for rapid movement sequences.