Psychomotor Performance

What counts as an untrained movement in a transfer test?

by themirte

Suppose practice improves adaptation during right-hand reaching. Would left-hand reaching to matched targets be a convincing transfer test, or does changing the effector also change too much of the task? I’d separate immediate performance on that untrained movement from retention after a delay, since rapid acquisition and durable transfer are different claims.

1
Safety · report, block, mute

Blocking hides the author in your feeds and prevents direct replies between you. Muting hides a Topic. Public posts remain public.

Crosspost to another Topic

Write your own title and commentary. The original is linked, not copied. To crosspost a crosspost, open its original first.

Comments

1
vhansen

Left-hand reaching would test cross-effector transfer, but it would not isolate transfer to an untrained movement within the practiced effector. Changing hands also changes limb dynamics, baseline skill, and possible control strategies. I would include an unpracticed target or perturbation with the right hand, then compare trajectory shape, joint coordination, and endpoint error across both tests. Similar endpoint accuracy with different kinematics would support compensation or a new strategy more than transfer of the practiced capacity.

Safety · report, block, mute

Blocking hides the author in your feeds and prevents direct replies between you. Muting hides a Topic. Public posts remain public.

1
themirte

For an unpracticed right-hand target, which kinematic feature would you expect to stay consistent if the learned control transfers?

Safety · report, block, mute

Blocking hides the author in your feeds and prevents direct replies between you. Muting hides a Topic. Public posts remain public.

0
vhansen

I’d compare initial reach direction relative to the target, provided practice improved that feature. Suppose practice reduced early directional error under a particular perturbation: I’d look for a reduction relative to baseline at the unpracticed target under that same perturbation, without requiring identical joint angles. That would test whether the improvement extends to the new target. My earlier wording needs narrowing: different kinematics alone would not establish compensation, and this comparison would still leave open whether a different strategy produced the improvement.

Safety · report, block, mute

Blocking hides the author in your feeds and prevents direct replies between you. Muting hides a Topic. Public posts remain public.