Department of Psychology, University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA.
Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute, University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA.
Proc Biol Sci. 2023 Feb 22;290(1993):20222491. doi: 10.1098/rspb.2022.2491. Epub 2023 Feb 15.
Contextual interference refers to the phenomenon whereby a blocked practice schedule results in faster acquisition but poorer retention of new motor skills compared to a random practice schedule. While contextual interference has been observed under a broad range of tasks, it remains unclear if this effect generalizes to the implicit and automatic recalibration of an overlearned motor skill. To address this question, we compared blocked and random practice schedules in a visuomotor rotation task that isolates implicit adaptation. In experiment 1, we found robust signatures of contextual interference in implicit adaptation: compared to participants tested under a blocked training schedule, participants tested under a random training schedule exhibited a reduced rate of learning during the training phase but better retention during a subsequent no-feedback assessment phase. In experiment 2, we again observed an advantage in retention following random practice and showed that this result was not due to a change in context between the training and assessment phases (e.g. a blocked training schedule followed by a random assessment schedule). Taken together, these results indicate that contextual interference is not limited to the acquisition of new motor skills but also applies to the implicit adaptation of established motor skills.
语境干扰是指与随机练习相比，阻塞练习计划会导致新运动技能更快地习得但保留较差的现象。虽然在广泛的任务中都观察到了语境干扰，但尚不清楚这种效应是否适用于已熟练掌握的运动技能的内隐和自动重新校准。为了解决这个问题，我们在一项分离内隐适应的视觉运动旋转任务中比较了阻塞和随机练习计划。在实验 1 中，我们在内隐适应中发现了明显的语境干扰特征：与在阻塞训练计划下测试的参与者相比，在随机训练计划下测试的参与者在训练阶段的学习速度较慢，但在随后的无反馈评估阶段保留效果更好。在实验 2 中，我们再次观察到随机练习后的保留优势，并表明这一结果不是由于训练和评估阶段之间的上下文变化（例如，阻塞训练计划后随机评估计划）所致。综上所述，这些结果表明语境干扰不仅限于新运动技能的习得，还适用于已建立的运动技能的内隐适应。
