Motor Skill Learning of a Racing Video Game With Intuitive versus Inverted and Random Controls.

AIM: Motor skill learning relies on increasing proficiency to translate sensory feedback to produce an updated motor command. This experience-dependent process allows our automatic movements to lead to an expected result-this is known as an "internal model." Video games provide a structured environment for studying these processes, as they typically develop stable sensory-motor relationships (or internal models) within the brain. PURPOSE: This study examined how disrupting these internal models with two different non-intuitive joystick control schemes affected short-term motor learning during a video game task. METHOD: Eighty healthy right-handed adults (males: n = 49 and females: n = 31) completed three blocks of five timed laps using normal controls (N1), inverted or random controls (IC/RC), and then returned to normal controls (N2). Half the subjects used inverted controls, while the other half used random controls during the IC/RC block. Performance was measured through lap times, and error was manually quantified by recording wall contacts. FINDING: Results showed that all participants improved from lap 1 to 5 within each testing block. The inverted control group had significantly slower initial lap times and more wall contacts during the first lap of the IC/RC and N2 blocks. There was a trend (p = 0.06) for the IC group to improve more than the RC group from lap 1 to lap 5 in the IC/RC block. Additionally, for the IC group, the first lap of block 3 was significantly slower than where they left off before the IC block (p = 0.002). The random control condition did not experience this same increase in lap time and wall contacts during lap 1 of the N2 testing block. Instead of experiencing anterograde interference, the random control group may have been subject to de novo learning taking place. CONCLUSION: This study therefore highlights the flexibility of motor learning systems and supports the accompaniment of interference with motor adaptation.