Motor skill learning leads to the increase of planning horizon

Abstract

We investigated motor skill learning using a path tracking task, where human subjects had to track various curved paths at a constant speed while maintaining the cursor within the path width. Subjects' accuracy increased with practice, even when tracking novel untrained paths. Using a "searchlight" paradigm, where only a short segment of the path ahead of the cursor was shown, we found that subjects with a higher tracking skill took a longer section of the future path into account when performing the task. An optimal control model with a fixed horizon (receding horizon control) that increases with tracking skill quantitatively captured the subjects' movement behaviour. These findings demonstrate that human subjects increase their planning horizon when acquiring a motor skill.

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