Experimental study demonstrates durable retention and transfer of motor execution skill in right-handed individuals, indicating intrinsic directional biases constrain generalization.
Key Points
Characterize the learning, retention, and generalization dynamics of speed, accuracy, and efficiency during motor execution practice.
Assessed N = 83 right-handed individuals (54 females) across two studies using a 2D gamified stylus racing task requiring rapid and accurate tracking.
Administered 300 training laps during Session 1, followed by a Session 2 evaluation testing retention and generalization to novel rotated and reverse-direction track configurations.
Movement speed improved rapidly with practice, demonstrating robust cross-session retention and generalization to novel tracks despite transient performance dips and a lack of offline gains.
Movement efficiency (indexed by path length) generalized to rotated tracks but was degraded when movement direction was reversed, with counterclockwise paths consistently slower and less efficient than clockwise paths.