Using observational learning to examine retrograde interference when learning with different limbs.

People have to constantly adapt the way they move to achieve their daily goals. For example, an individual needs to use more force when walking through water than on dry land, and further adapt the direction of those forces if the water develops a current. Similar adaptations are needed when wearing a new pair of gloves, using a new tool such as a golf club or hammer, or when moving in virtual reality for the first time. In many situations, motor adaptations suffer from a strong presence of retrograde interference (i.e., competition between the previous and the to-be-learned movement pattern which negatively affects the learning of the new movement). The proposed project will determine if observational practice (watching someone else perform a task) can eliminate the potentially negative after-effect experienced when learning to adapt to a new movement environment. Observational practice might help limit this retrograde interference effect because the processes that underlie observational learning are similar to, but different in important ways from the processes that lead to learning when people physically practice a movement. The results of this study will help us understand the learning process and, as a result.. TBC

Faculty Supervisor:

Timothy Welsh

Student:

Partner:

Indian Institute of Technology Gandhinagar

Discipline:

Life Sciences

Sector:

Education

University:

University of Toronto

Program: