The Effect of Different Combinations of Practice Schedules on Motor Response Stability during Practice

Abstract

Many results in motor learning have indicated that relative and absolute timing dimensions are modulated by factors that modify response stability among trials. One of these factors is the combination of constant and variable practices. Although many researchers have investigated the combination of practice schedules, these researchers have used measurements that do not assess performance and motor response separately. This study aimed to investigate the effect of different combinations of practice schedules on motor response stability during practice. Participants performed a sequential key-pressing task with two goals: (1) to learn the relative timing dimension and (2) the absolute timing dimension. Participants were assigned to one of two groups: constant-variable or variable-constant. Our findings indicate an influence of the increase in variability over the practice in the constant-variable group. Precisely, the increase in variability of total time in the second half (constant-variable group) of practice was followed by the maintenance of the same level of cross-correlate between absolute timing error and variability of total time. Finally, our findings support the hypothesis that practicing in a constant schedule favors the relative timing dimension of learning regardless of the order in which the constant practice is provided.

Keywords:

• motor learning
• constant practice
• variability of practice

Acknowledgments

We thank Joana Andrade Ramalho Pinto for assistance with grammatical corrections.

AUTHORS’ CONTRIBUTION

Tércio Apolinário-Souza: Conceptualization; Data curation; Formal analysis; Funding acquisition; Investigation; Methodology; Project administration; Resources; Software; Supervision; Validation; Visualization; Roles/Writing—original draft; Writing—review and editing

Natália Lelis-Torres: Conceptualization; Roles/Writing—original draft; Writing—review and editing

Stanislaw H. Czyż: Conceptualization; Investigation; Supervision; Writing—original draft; Writing—review and editing

Guilherme Menezes Lage: Conceptualization; Investigation; Project administration; Resources; Supervision; Roles/Writing—original draft; Writing—review and editing

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data Availability Statement

The data that support the findings of this study are openly available in Mendley Data repository at http://doi.org/10.17632/zvwn9kcd7c.

Additional information

Funding

None.