Perceptual Effect on Motor Learning in the Serial Reaction-Time Task

ABSTRACT

Although the Serial Reaction-Time Task has been an effective tool in studying procedural learning, there is still a debate as to whether learning in the task is effector-based, stimulus-based, or response-based. In this article, the authors contribute to this debate by contrasting response- and stimulus-based learning by manipulating them selectively and simultaneously. Results show that (a) participants learned response sequences in the absence of stimulus-specific perceptual sequence information but (b) not stimulus sequences without corresponding response information. In a third condition, response sequence and stimulus frequency information were in conflict, and each effect decreased learning in the other domain. Overall, our findings show that learning in these tasks is primarily motor-based, but it is also constrained by relatively salient perceptual information. Together with earlier findings in the literature, the findings also suggest a task and stimulus-arrangement-specific interaction between motor and perceptual learning, where relevance and salience of the specific information plays a crucial role.

Keywords:

• motor-based learning
• perceptual-based learning
• sequence learning
• serial reaction-time task

Acknowledgments

The research was supported by Implab “Implicit Cognition” research grant. The authors are grateful to two anonymous reviewers and Dr. Paula Goolkasian for their helpful comments and suggestions.

Notes

1. The line drawings are for illustration (drawings are collected from the International Picture Naming Project database: http://crl.ucsd.edu/~aszekely/ipnp/1studies.html, Bates et al., 2003); in the actual experiment color photos were used.