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Switching between Newly Learned Motor Skills
Kahori Kita1,2, Yue Du3,4, Travis Tran3
1Department of Neurology, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland 21287 kahori.kita@gmail.com.
Summary
Switching between motor skills incurs a transient cost, similar to cognitive tasks. Errors arise from persisting with previous motor control policies, especially with newly learned skills.
Area of Science:
- Motor control and learning
- Cognitive psychology
- Human motor performance
Background:
- Cognitive flexibility research identifies switch costs when tasks change.
- The existence of analogous switch costs in motor skill acquisition is less understood.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate whether switching between different motor skills incurs switch costs.
- To determine the source of errors during motor skill switching.
Main Methods:
- Participants learned and switched between motor skills with novel and intuitive visuomotor mappings.
- Error rates were analyzed immediately following switches between skills.
- Perseveration of preswitch policies was assessed as a potential error source.
Main Results:
- Increased errors were observed in trials immediately after switching motor skills.
- Errors were primarily due to perseveration with the previous motor control policy.
- Switching between two newly learned skills was initially difficult but improved with training.
Conclusions:
- Switching between newly learned motor skills presents challenges.
- Motor skill switching errors are largely attributed to perseveration with the incorrect control policy.
- These findings highlight the interplay between cognitive and motor control during skill acquisition and switching.
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