Our novel training paradigm produced significantly different performance across groups at various points throughout learning. Our results suggest that subjects’ performances on the goal task was not significantly different across groups by the end of training. What we did observe however was a significant difference of performance of the goal task, and the amount of error made during practice trials early on when comparing groups using our training paradigm, versus the group immediately exposed to the difficult task.
We determined that our training paradigm successfully reduced the difficulty and errors of a complex task while allowing gradual training towards the goal task. Having significantly lower errors during the beginning of training, it is possible that our paradigm could be implemented successfully with even greater effect towards tasks with higher errors resulting in penalties. For example, in physiotherapy or training of tasks like riding a bicycle where larger errors may result in injuries, it is possible to use this paradigm to reduce initial errors without affecting long-term final performance of the task.
On the contrary, if the goal is to reach the best performance possible as early as possible, it may be beneficial to allow learning of the final complex task from the beginning. Further studies are required to understand how this novel paradigm generalizes to other tasks.
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Vita
Name
Alvin Chin
Post-secondary education and degrees
Western University, London ON 2007-2011 B.M.Sc. (Hon.)
Honours and Awards
Western Graduate Research Scholarship, 2011-12, 2012-13 Western Honour Roll, 2007-8, 2008-9, 2009-10, 2010-11
Related Work Experience
Teaching Assistant, Introduction to Psychology, University of Western Ontario, 2011-2013
Research Assistant, Dr. Paul L Gribble, Motor Control Lab, University of Western Ontario, 2011
Research Assistant, Dr. Ed Lui, Ginseng Lab, University of Western Ontario, 2010
Publications
Wong JD, Kistemaker DA, Chin A, Gribble PL (2012). Can proprioceptive training improve motor learning?. Journal of Neurophysiology. 108(12): 3313- 21
Presentations as a guest speaker
Chin A, Gribble PL (2012). Can incrementally modifying the goal increase the rate of learning for a complex motor task? Poster presented at the Society for Neuroscience 42nd annual meeting, 2012, New Orleans, LA.