scholarly journals Cerebellar involvement in learning to balance a cart-pole system

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicolas Ludolph ◽  
Thomas M. Ernst ◽  
Oliver M. Mueller ◽  
Sophia L. Goericke ◽  
Martin A. Giese ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Motor Learning ◽  
Skill Acquisition ◽  
Learning Task ◽  
Learning Performance ◽  
Control Mechanisms ◽  
Offline Learning ◽  
Cerebellar Involvement ◽  
Lesion Symptom Mapping ◽  
Pole System

ABSTRACTThe role of the cerebellum in error-based motor adaptation is well examined. In contrast, the involvement of the cerebellum in reward-based motor learning is less clear. In this study, we examined cerebellar involvement in a reward-based motor learning task, namely learning to control a virtual cart-pole system, over five consecutive days. Subjects with focal cerebellar lesions were compared to age-matched controls in terms of learning performance and underlying control mechanisms.Based on the overall balancing performance we have identified two subgroups of patients: (1) patients with learning performance comparable to healthy controls and (2) patients with decelerated learning, unsaturated learning progress after five days and decreased inter-manual transfer. Furthermore, we found that online learning is impaired while offline learning is partly preserved in cerebellar subjects. Regarding control mechanisms, decreased control performance was associated with impairments in predictive action timing.Voxel-wise lesion symptom mapping based on the two subgroups revealed strong associations between impairments in controlling the virtual cart-pole system and lesions in intermediate and lateral parts of lobules V and VI. These results together with previous reports suggest that the ability to predict the dynamics of the cart-pole system is an important factor for the reward-based skill acquisition process.

scholarly journals What drives individual differences in statistical learning? The role of perceptual fluency and familiarity

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amy Perfors ◽  
Evan Kidd
Keyword(s):  
Individual Differences ◽  
Statistical Learning ◽  
Learning Task ◽  
Perceptual Fluency ◽  
Learning Performance ◽  
Visual Modality ◽  
Learning Skills ◽  
Domain Specific ◽  
Different Levels

Humans have the ability to learn surprisingly complicated statistical information in a variety of modalities and situations, often based on relatively little input. These statistical learning (SL) skills appear to underlie many kinds of learning, but despite their ubiquity, we still do not fully understand precisely what SL is and what individual differences on SL tasks reflect. Here we present experimental work suggesting that at least some individual differences arise from variation in perceptual fluency — the ability to rapidly or efficiently code and remember the stimuli that statistical learning occurs over. We show that performance on a standard SL task varies substantially within the same (visual) modality as a function of whether the stimuli involved are familiar or not, independent of stimulus complexity. Moreover, we find that test-retest correlations of performance in a statistical learning task using stimuli of the same level of familiarity (but distinct items) are stronger than correlations across the same task with different levels of familiarity. Finally, we demonstrate that statistical learning performance is predicted by an independent measure of stimulus-specific perceptual fluency which contains no statistical learning component at all. Our results suggest that a key component of SL performance may be unrelated to either domain-specific statistical learning skills or modality-specific perceptual processing.

scholarly journals Motor and Audiovisual Learning Consolidate Auditory Memory of Tonally Ambiguous Melodies

2016 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
pp. 21-32 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrea Schiavio ◽  
Renee Timmers
Keyword(s):  
Motor Learning ◽  
Skill Acquisition ◽  
Auditory Feedback ◽  
Learning Phase ◽  
Auditory Memory ◽  
Control Group ◽  
Learning Condition ◽  
Familiarization Phase ◽  
The Way

The present study investigated the role of motor and audiovisual learning in the memorization of four tonally ambiguous melodies for piano. A total of one hundred and twenty participants divided into three groups — pianists, other musicians (i.e., not pianists), and nonmusicians — learned the melodies through either playing them on a keyboard (playing condition), through performing the melodies on a piano without auditory feedback (silent playing condition), through watching a video with a performer playing the melodies (seeing condition), or through listening to them (control condition). Participants were exposed to each melody four times during the learning phase (in additional to hearing it once during a familiarization phase). This exposure consisted of an alternation between hearing the melody and engaging with the melody in the way determined by the learning condition. Participants in the control group only received the auditory aspect of the learning phase and listened to each melody twice. Memory of the melodies was tested after a 10-minute break. Our results indicate a benefit of motor learning for all groups of participants, suggesting that active sensorimotor experience plays a key role in musical skill acquisition.

scholarly journals Sequential motor learning transfers from real to virtual environment

2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Yuhi Takeo ◽  
Masayuki Hara ◽  
Yuna Shirakawa ◽  
Takashi Ikeda ◽  
Hisato Sugata
Keyword(s):  
Motor Learning ◽  
Virtual Environments ◽  
Virtual Environment ◽  
Motor Skills ◽  
Skill Acquisition ◽  
Learning Task ◽  
Button Press ◽  
Reaching Task ◽  
Learning Tasks ◽  
Task Order

Abstract Background Skill acquisition of motor learning between virtual environments (VEs) and real environments (REs) may be related. Although studies have previously examined the transfer of motor learning in VEs and REs through the same tasks, only a small number of studies have focused on studying the transfer of motor learning in VEs and REs by using different tasks. Thus, detailed effects of the transfer of motor skills between VEs and REs remain controversial. Here, we investigated the transfer of sequential motor learning between VEs and REs conditions. Methods Twenty-seven healthy volunteers performed two types of sequential motor learning tasks; a visually cued button-press task in RE (RE task) and a virtual reaching task in VE (VE task). Participants were randomly assigned to two groups in the task order; the first group was RE task followed by VE task and the second group was VE task followed by RE task. Subsequently, the response time in RE task and VE task was compared between the two groups respectively. Results The results showed that the sequential reaching task in VEs was facilitated after the sequential finger task in REs. Conclusions These findings suggested that the sequential reaching task in VEs can be facilitated by a motor learning task comprising the same sequential finger task in REs, even when a different task is applied.

scholarly journals What drives individual differences in statistical learning? The role of perceptual fluency and familiarity

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew Perfors ◽  
Evan Kidd
Keyword(s):  
Individual Differences ◽  
Statistical Learning ◽  
Learning Task ◽  
Perceptual Processing ◽  
Perceptual Fluency ◽  
Learning Performance ◽  
Visual Modality ◽  
Stimulus Familiarity ◽  
Different Levels

Humans have the ability to learn surprisingly complicated statistical information in avariety of modalities and situations, often based on relatively little input. These statistical learning (SL) skills appear to underlie many kinds of learning, but despite their ubiquity, we still do not fully understand precisely what SL is and what individual differences on SL tasks reflect. Here we present experimental work suggesting that at least some individual differences arise from variation in perceptual fluency — the ability to rapidly or efficiently code and remember the stimuli that statistical learning occurs over – and that perceptual fluency is driven at least in part by stimulus familiarity: performance on a standard SL task varies substantially within the same (visual) modality as a function of whether the stimuli involved are familiar or not, independent of stimulus complexity. Moreover, we find that test-retest correlations of performance in a statistical learning task using stimuli of the same level of familiarity (but distinct items) are stronger than correlations across the same task with stimuli of different levels of familiarity. Finally, we demonstrate that statistical learning performance is predicted by an independent measure of stimulus-specific perceptual fluency that contains no statistical learning component at all. Our results suggest that a key component of statistical learning performance may be related to stimulus-specific perceptual processing and familiarity.

scholarly journals Perceptions of competence and motor learning: performance criterion resulting in low success experience degrades learning

2015 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Suzete Chiviacowsky ◽  
Natália Maass Harter
Keyword(s):  
Motor Learning ◽  
Performance Criterion ◽  
Learning Performance ◽  
Control Group ◽  
Dominant Hand ◽  
Error Feedback ◽  
Timing Task ◽  
Success Experience ◽  
And Control

<p>Recent findings have provided converging evidence for the important role of perceptions of competence on motor learning. In the present study we asked whether thwarting learners’ need to feel competent by setting a relatively high criterion for “good” performance, thereby reducing their experience of success, would degrade learning. Participants practiced a coincident-anticipation timing task and received error feedback after every other trial (50%) during the practice phase. One group (low success or LS) was informed before the beginning of practice that an error of 4 ms or less would be considered a good trial, whereas another group (high success or HS) was told that an error of 30 ms or less would be considered good performance. A third (control) group was not given a performance criterion. During practice, participants in the LS and HS groups experienced good performance (i.e., were within their criterion range) on 6.3% and 57.8% of the feedback trials, respectively. On retention and transfer (non-dominant hand) tests without feedback one day after practice, absolute errors of the HS and control groups were significantly lower than those of the LS group. Participants in the HS group reported higher levels of self-efficacy than LS and control group participants. The results demonstrate that reducing learners’ opportunities to experience success during practice degraded learning. </p>

scholarly journals Sequential Motor Learning Transfers from Real to Virtual Environment

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yuhi Takeo ◽  
Masayuki Hara ◽  
Yuna Shirakawa ◽  
Takashi Ikeda ◽  
Hisato Sugata
Keyword(s):  
Motor Learning ◽  
Virtual Environments ◽  
Virtual Environment ◽  
Motor Skills ◽  
Skill Acquisition ◽  
Learning Task ◽  
Button Press ◽  
Reaching Task ◽  
Learning Tasks ◽  
Task Order

Abstract Background:Skill acquisition of motor learning between virtual environments (VEs) and real environments (REs) may be related. Although studies have previously examined the transfer of motor learning in VEs and REs through the same tasks, only a small number of studies have focused on studying the transfer of motor learning in VEs and REs by using different tasks. Thus, detailed effects of the transfer of motor skills between VEs and REs remain controversial. Here, we investigated the transfer of sequential motor learning between VEs and REs conditions.Methods:Twenty-seven healthy volunteers performed two types of sequential motor learning tasks; a visually cued button press task in RE (RE task) and a virtual reaching task in VE (VE task). Participants were randomly assigned to two groups in the task order; the first group was RE task followed by VE task and the second group was VE task followed by RE task. Subsequently, the response time in RE task and VE task was compared between the two groups respectively.Results:The results revealed that sequential motor learning was transferred when motor learning in VEs was performed after motor learning in REs, but not when motor learning in REs was performed after motor learning in VEs.Conclusions:These findings suggested that sequential motor learning in VEs can be facilitated by motor learning task consisting of the same sequence in REs even when different task is applied. These results may derive from the fact that motor learning in REs is more implicit than that in VEs.

scholarly journals Hippocampal connectivity with sensorimotor cortex during volitional finger movements I. Laterality and relationship to motor learning

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Douglas D. Burman
Keyword(s):  
Motor Learning ◽  
Sensorimotor Cortex ◽  
Sequence Learning ◽  
Global Analysis ◽  
Learning Task ◽  
Finger Movements ◽  
Motor Tasks ◽  
Hippocampal Activity ◽  
Visual Tasks

AbstractHippocampal interactions with the motor system are often assumed to reflect the role of memory in motor learning. Here, we examine hippocampal connectivity with sensorimotor cortex during two tasks requiring paced movements, one with a mnemonic component (sequence learning) and one without (repetitive tapping). Functional magnetic resonance imaging activity was recorded from thirteen right-handed subjects; connectivity was identified from sensorimotor cortex (SMC) correlations with psychophysiological interactions in hippocampal activity between motor and passive visual tasks. Finger movements in both motor tasks anticipated the timing of the metronome, reflecting cognitive control, yet evidence of motor learning was limited to the sequence learning task; nonetheless, hippocampal connectivity was observed during both tasks. Connectivity from corresponding regions in the left and right hippocampus overlapped extensively, with improved sensitivity resulting from their conjunctive (global) analysis. The cortical laterality of SMC connectivity depended both on the hippocampal source and the task.Functionally-defined seeds produced bilateral connectivity within the hand representation, regardless of whether finger movements were uni- or bimanual; these seeds were located midlateral within the hippocampus, whereas structural seeds were located in the posterior hippocampus and produced unilateral connectivity. Results implicate the hippocampus in volitional finger movements even in the absence of motor learning or recall.

scholarly journals Perceptions of competence and motor learning: performance criterion resulting in low success experience degrades learning

2015 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Suzete Chiviacowsky ◽  
Natália Maass Harter
Keyword(s):  
Motor Learning ◽  
Performance Criterion ◽  
Learning Performance ◽  
Control Group ◽  
Dominant Hand ◽  
Error Feedback ◽  
Timing Task ◽  
Success Experience ◽  
And Control

Recent findings have provided converging evidence for the important role of perceptions of competence on motor learning. In the present study we asked whether thwarting learners’ need to feel competent by setting a relatively high criterion for “good” performance, thereby reducing their experience of success, would degrade learning. Participants practiced a coincident-anticipation timing task and received error feedback after every other trial (50%) during the practice phase. One group (low success or LS) was informed before the beginning of practice that an error of 4 ms or less would be considered a good trial, whereas another group (high success or HS) was told that an error of 30 ms or less would be considered good performance. A third (control) group was not given a performance criterion. During practice, participants in the LS and HS groups experienced good performance (i.e., were within their criterion range) on 6.3% and 57.8% of the feedback trials, respectively. On retention and transfer (non-dominant hand) tests without feedback one day after practice, absolute errors of the HS and control groups were significantly lower than those of the LS group. Participants in the HS group reported higher levels of self-efficacy than LS and control group participants. The results demonstrate that reducing learners’ opportunities to experience success during practice degraded learning. 

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