The Statistical Determinants of the Speed of Motor Learning.

• Main Authors: Kang He, You Liang, Farnaz Abdollahi, Moria Fisher Bittmann, Konrad Kording, Kunlin Wei
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Public Library of Science (PLoS) 2016-09-01
• Series: PLoS Computational Biology
• Online Access: http://europepmc.org/articles/PMC5015831?pdf=render

It has recently been suggested that movement variability directly increases the speed of motor learning. Here we use computational modeling of motor adaptation to show that variability can have a broad range of effects on learning, both negative and positive. Experimentally, we also find contributing and decelerating effects. Lastly, through a meta-analysis of published papers, we verify that across a wide range of experiments, movement variability has no statistical relation with learning rate. While motor learning is a complex process that can be modeled, further research is needed to understand the relative importance of the involved factors.