Motor Skill Learning of a Racing Video Game With Intuitive versus Inverted and Random Controls

Motor skill learning relies on increasing proficiency to translate sensory feedback to produce an updated motor command. This experience-dependent process allows our automatic movements to lead to an expected result-this is known as an "internal model." Video games provide a structured environment for studying these processes, as they typically develop stable sensory-motor relationships (or internal models) within the brain.

This study examined how disrupting these internal models with two different non-intuitive joystick control schemes affected short-term motor learning during a video game task.

Eighty healthy right-handed adults (males: n = 49 and females: n = 31) completed three blocks of five timed laps using normal controls (N1), inverted or random controls (IC/RC), and then returned to normal controls (N2). Half the subjects used inverted controls, while the other half used random controls during the IC/RC block. Performance was measured through lap times, and error was manually quantified by recording wall contacts.

Results showed that all participants improved from lap 1 to 5 within each testing block. The inverted control group had significantly slower initial lap times and more wall contacts during the first lap of the IC/RC and N2 blocks. There was a trend (p = 0.06) for the IC group to improve more than the RC group from lap 1 to lap 5 in the IC/RC block. Additionally, for the IC group, the first lap of block 3 was significantly slower than where they left off before the IC block (p = 0.002). The random control condition did not experience this same increase in lap time and wall contacts during lap 1 of the N2 testing block. Instead of experiencing anterograde interference, the random control group may have been subject to de novo learning taking place.

This study therefore highlights the flexibility of motor learning systems and supports the accompaniment of interference with motor adaptation.