Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jun 1, 2026
Movement Retraining using Real-time Feedback of Performance
Published on: January 17, 2013
Motor learning strategies during walking with error and reinforcement feedback in healthy older adults
Sara Penuela Rodriguez1, José A Barela2, Ana Maria Forti Barela3
1University of Delaware, Department of Kinesiology and Applied Physiology, United States.
Introduction:
As we age, brain regions important for mediating motor learning strategies, such as the basal ganglia, the cerebellum, and the frontal cortex, experience functional decline, impacting our ability to retain and learn new motor actions. Here, we investigate whether healthy older adults can use reinforcement and error-based feedback as learning strategies during walking.
Methods:
Using a self-paced treadmill and a virtual environment, 15 participants adjusted both their step lengths and step widths over a set of walking trials while receiving reinforcement or error feedback.
Results:
Results showed that error feedback may lead to corrective behavior by adjusting both step length and width to maximize target success. Reinforcement feedback during the step length conditions led to more exploratory behavior, like the no-feedback-baseline condition, suggesting step length adjustments may not be influenced by explicit reinforcement feedback. Reinforcement feedback also led to slightly lower target success rates compared to error feedback.
Discussion:
These findings are like those found in a previous study in young adults, with the caveat that the target window for older adults was larger than that for younger adults, indicating successful use of feedback but only within overall higher variability in stepping behavior.
