Retention and adaptive control of force patterns in finger-tapping sequences

Force and electromyography reflections of sensory action-effect weighting during pinching

Ideomotor theories suggest that different action-effects are not equally important in goal-directed actions, and that task-relevant information are weighted stronger during the representation of actions. This stronger weighting of task-relevant action-effects might also enable to utilize them as retrieval cues of the corresponding motor patterns. The aim of the present study was to investigate how the consistent presence or absence of a sound action-effect influenced the retrieval of the motor components of a simple, everyday action (pinching) as reflected by the pattern of force application and surface electromyogram (sEMG) recorded from the abductor pollicis brevis (APB) and first dorsal interosseous (FDI). Participants applied pairs of pinch impulses to a force sensitive resistor (FSR). The presence or absence of a sound action-effect and the between-action interval (BAI, 2 or 4 s) were manipulated blockwise, whereas the target force level (low or high) was randomly cued from trial to trial. When actions resulted in a sound, force and sEMG activity were reduced. This effect was more pronounced for low target force level trials, which is compatible with a stronger weighting of the sound action-effect when the intensity of the tactile and proprioceptive action-effects is low. Surprisingly, the FDI activity was more variable within actions pairs in the 2 s BAI conditions, which suggests that action pairs separated by the longer time interval might have been represented differently from those separated by the shorter interval.

Contextual effects on force control and timing in a finger-tapping sequence with an accentuated- or attenuated-force tap

An experiment was conducted to examine contextual effects of the magnitude of changes in force on force control in a finger-tapping sequence with an accentuated- (accentuated-force condition) or attenuated-force tap (attenuated-force condition). Participants were trained to produce a finger-tapping sequence with an intertap interval of 500 ms and four force patterns. During practice, visual force feedback pertaining to the two target forces in the tapping sequences was provided. After practice, the participants reproduced the learned tapping sequences in the absence of feedback. A main result was that the last accentuated-force tap affected the first three taps of the tapping sequence. For the accentuated-force conditions, the larger the difference between the first three target forces and the last target force, the larger the first three forces. This indicates the contextual effect of serial position for force control. This effect was not observed, however, under the attenuated-force conditions.

Development of force control and timing in a finger-tapping sequence with an attenuated-force tap

We conducted an experiment to examine age-related differences in the control of force and timing in a finger-tapping sequence with an attenuated-force tap. Participants between 7 and 20 years old tapped on a load cell with feedback on practice trials. They were required to recall the force pattern (300 g, 300 g, 300 g, 100 g) and the intertap interval (400 ms) without feedback on test trials. Analysis indicated that the last attenuated tap affected the first three taps of the tapping sequence in adults and adolescents but not in children. Adults and adolescents appeared to respond with four taps as a chunk, resulting in a contextual effect on the timing of force control, but younger children had difficulty with such chunking. Further, adults and adolescents were able to more accurately produce individual force magnitudes to match target magnitudes than younger children. For the ratio of force in serial positions 1:4, 2:4, and 3:4, consequently, 7- to 8-year-old children had lower ratios than the other age groups. Although there was no difference among age groups for timing control of peak force to press duration as a control strategy of force, 7- to 8-year-old children spent more time to produce force than the other age groups. Peak force with a decreased force was more variable in the attenuated force serial position (4) than in the other serial positions in all five age groups. Peak force variability was particularly robust in younger children. These findings suggest that younger children have difficulty with both temporal and spatial (i.e., magnitude) components of force control.

Effects of sensory feedback on variations on intertap interval and force in finger-tapping sequences

This study was designed to examine effects of somatosensory feedback on variations of intertap interval and muscle force in finger-tapping sequences over 10 minutes. Although intertap intervals were decreased on the massed task as the time passed, the intervals were constant in the distributed task. In finger-tapping for a long time, impulses perhaps circulate within the loop circuits between the cerebral motor cortex and the peripheral nerve and subsequently increase further the excitability of the circuits. This increase in the excitability within the circuits may shorten the interval and increase variation of the interval. On the other hand, although peak force increased up to the 5-min. mark on the massed task, the force decreased after the 6-min. mark. This increase of force also may be produced by increasing activation of the corticoperipheral loop circuits. Although the decrease of force was perhaps produced by the fatigue of finger muscles for tapping during a few minutes, fatigue appeared more clearly in muscle force than in timing control. However, the force and the variation were constant in the distributed task.

Retention of relative force in the scaling of a serial force pattern with an attenuated-force tap

The present study was designed to examine the retention of relative force in the scaling of a serial force pattern in a finger-tapping sequence using an attenuated tap. On practice trials, 12 undergraduate students tapped a force plate connected to strain gauges that gave them feedback about the force. On test trials, participants recalled the force pattern (200 gm-200 gm-200 gm-100 gm) and the intertap interval (400 msec.) practiced during the practice period without the feedback (recalled task). Then, they adaptively produced a halved (halved task) or doubled force profile (doubled task) at the fixed intertap interval. Analyses showed that mean peak forces at the first three tap positions of the tapping sequence undershot the expected forces across all tasks. Hence, the ratios of the forces in Serial Positions 1:4, 2:4, and 3:4 were considerably lower than 2.0. This is a contextual effect suggesting that the last attenuated tap affected the first three taps of the tapping sequence. Thus, because the relative force of movements appears to be a weaker invariant feature than sequencing and relative timing for generalized motor program theory of Schmidt and Lee, this finding does not support the relative force for a generalized motor program.

Retention and adaptive control of force pattern on a finger-tapping sequence with an attenuated force tap

The present study was designed to examine the retention and adaptive control of a force pattern in the scaling of speed profiles in a finger-tapping sequence with an attenuated tap. On practice trials, 11 college students tapped on a force plate connected to strain gauges with feedback. On test trials, participants recalled the force pattern (200 gm-200 gm-200 gm-100 gm) and the intertap interval 1400 msec.) acquired during practice without feedback (recalled task). Then, participants adaptively tapped the acquired force pattern at the half (speeded task) and double (slowed task) the intertap interval acquired during the practice. Analyses showed that mean peak forces increased across tasks as the tapping speed was slowed down. Mean peak forces at the first three tap positions in sequence were smaller than the required forces in both the recall and speeded tasks. So, although the slowed task had the lowest ratio of forces in serial positions 1:4, 2:4, and 3:4, the ratios were less than 2 across tasks. These indicated that changing to a slow pace creates a more difficult adaptive task than changing to a fast pace, and further that a serial force pattern with an attenuated force creates a more difficult motor task for fine control than that with an accentuated force.

Retention of relative force in the scaling of a serial force pattern

The present study was designed to examine the retention of relative force in the scaling of a serial force pattern in finger-tapping sequences. On practice trials, 11 male college students tapped a force plate connected to strain gauges which provided feedback. On test trials, subjects recalled both the force pattern (100 g-100 g-100 g-300 g) and intertap interval (400 msec.) acquired during practice without feedback (recalled task) and then produced a halved (halved task) or doubled-force (doubled task) at the fixed intertap interval. Analysis showed that, although there was no difference for absolute forces between the recalled task and the halved task, the forces at the doubled task were three times as great as those at the recalled task. For relative forces, on the other hand, although there was no difference among the three tasks, the force ratios were closer to 1:1:1:2 than 1:1:1:3. This indicated that the scaling of force pattern was a more difficult adaptive task than that of the intertap interval in the previous study (Inui, Ishida, & Yamanishi, 1999).