Effects of traditional and reversed bandwidth knowledge of results on motor learning

The effects of two types of bandwidth (BW) knowledge of results (KR) were investigated on the acquisition and immediate retention of a timing task. Traditional and reversed BW KR groups were compared with two yoked control groups. Forty-eight randomly assigned subjects completed 60 acquisition trials and 20 no-KR retention trials. Acquisition analysis indicated a greater timing accuracy for the traditional BW group in comparison to the reversed BW group. During retention, less absolute constant error was found for both BW groups than for their yoked controls. Absolute performance changes were analyzed to further differentiate the contributions of quantitative and qualitative KR available in both types of BW conditions. This analysis revealed a significant KR x Trial Type interaction. Reliable changes in performance were observed after quantitative trials for the traditional BW group, whereas for the reversed BW group, reliable changes were observed after qualitative trials. This reversed BW group finding, along with the retention accuracy findings, indicated that the qualitative information was used to learn the timing task.