Perceptual Trace Development during Motor Skill Acquisition in Stroke Patients

The hypothesis that stroke patients could learn a perceptual motor skill by developing a strong perceptual trace with practice was tested. Ten spastic stroke patients and sixteen normal subjects were observed while they learned a novel self-paced linear displacement task. The criterion movement was the displacement of an object with the affected leg (in the case of stroke patients) and left leg (in normal subjects), to a designated target. Visual, auditory, kinesthetic as well as knowledge of result information was available to the subjects. The results showed that stroke patients were able to reduce their movement errors as a function of practice by developing and strengthening their perceptual trace. This technique may be adapated for the modification of the motor behaviour of stroke patients.