Sequence Learning and Its Transfer across Effectors: a Meganetoencephalography Study(4/4)

Extracting regularity embedded in the incoming sequence of information and acting accordingly is crucial for survival. Previous studies investigating the acquisition of sequential motor skills have not compared how highly dissimilar effectors learn and transfer the skill between each other. Understanding and comparing the learning and transfer process in highly dissimilar effectors, such as speech and manual responses, may shed light on the nature of what is learned in implicit motor sequence learning. To examine motor sequence learning and the associated brain oscillations under various theoretically important and intriguing scenarios, including impacts of sequential uncertainty in spatial, symbolic, and temporal characteristics, the current study proposes a series of eighteen experiments over the span of four project years. In the project Year 1, manual and speech sequence learning will be compared in pairs of behavioral and MEG experiments to explore the impacts of sequence varying probabilistically in spatial location of targets and responses (Experiment 1-1 & 1-2), in non-spatial symbolic content of targets and their mapped responses (Experiment 1-3 & 1-4), and in temporal separation between consecutive response and upcoming target (Experiment 1-5 & 1-6). After gathering comprehensive information about difference between manual and speech responses under these distinct variation of sequence as well as the associated brain oscillations, the following years will explore the cross-effector transfer for these structural characteristics. Year 2 will focus on the transfer of spatial sequence learning from manual to speech (Experiment 2-1 & 2-2) and from speech to manual (Experiment 2-3 & 2-4) responses. Likewise, Year 3 studies transfer symmetrically for sequence varying in symbolic contents and response selection (Experiment 3-1 ~ 3-4). Finally, Year 4 investigate transfer for sequence varying in temporal separation between response and target (Experiment 4-1 ~ 4-4). Throughout the project years, pairs of behavioral and MEG experiment complement each other in uncovering optimal parameters for revealing learning and transfer effect and brain dynamics. A new and advanced theoretical view of motor sequence learning will be established, and the underlying brain mechanisms will be uncovered.