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Tactile perceptual learning: learning curves and transfer to the contralateral finger

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Abstract

Tactile perceptual learning has been shown to improve performance on tactile tasks, but there is no agreement about the extent of transfer to untrained skin locations. The lack of such transfer is often seen as a behavioral index of the contribution of early somatosensory brain regions. Moreover, the time course of improvements has never been described explicitly. Sixteen subjects were trained on the Ludvigh task (a tactile vernier task) on four subsequent days. On the fifth day, transfer of learning to the non-trained contralateral hand was tested. In five subjects, we explored to what extent training effects were retained approximately 1.5 years after the final training session, expecting to find long-term retention of learning effects after training. Results showed that tactile perceptual learning mainly occurred offline, between sessions. Training effects did not transfer initially, but became fully available to the untrained contralateral hand after a few additional training runs. After 1.5 years, training effects were not fully washed out and could be recuperated within a single training session. Interpreted in the light of theories of visual perceptual learning, these results suggest that tactile perceptual learning is not fundamentally different from visual perceptual learning, but might proceed at a slower pace due to procedural and task differences, thus explaining the apparent divergence in the amount of transfer and long-term retention.

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Notes

  1. One subject (subject 15) was excluded from the analysis due to a missing value for the last staircase of the non-dominant hand on the fifth day.

Abbreviations

ANOVA:

Analysis of variance

BSRD:

Between Session Relative Decrease

LI:

Learning Index

RA:

Rapidly adapting

RHT:

Reverse hierarchy theory

SA1:

Slowly adapting type 1

S1:

Primary somatosensory cortex

S2:

Secondary somatosensory cortex

WSRD:

Within-Session Relative Decrease

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Acknowledgments

The authors gratefully acknowledge the support of the BrainGain Smart Mix Programme of the Netherlands Ministry of Economic Affairs and the Netherlands Ministry of Education, Culture and Science. We thank Caroline Benjamins and Bart Aben for their help in data acquisition, Prof. Jack Loomis for his advice and Prof. Krish Sathian for providing details on his stimulus design.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Cognitive Neuroscience, Faculty of Psychology and Neuroscience, Maastricht University, PO Box 616, 6200 MD, Maastricht, The Netherlands

    Amanda L. Kaas, Vincent van de Ven, Joel Reithler & Rainer Goebel

  2. Maastricht Brain Imaging Center (M-BIC), PO Box 616, 6200 MD, Maastricht, The Netherlands

    Amanda L. Kaas, Vincent van de Ven, Joel Reithler & Rainer Goebel

  3. Department of Neuroimaging and Neuromodeling, Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience, Institute of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW), 1105 BA, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

    Joel Reithler & Rainer Goebel

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  1. Amanda L. Kaas
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  2. Vincent van de Ven
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  3. Joel Reithler
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  4. Rainer Goebel
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Correspondence to Amanda L. Kaas.

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Supplementary material 1 (DOC 56 kb)

221_2012_3329_MOESM2_ESM.tif

Supplementary material figure 1: Within-session relative improvement dominant hand The estimated marginal means for the within-session decrease of session one to four for the dominant hand, expressed as the percentage change of staircase two, three and four with respect to the first staircase in the session. The value for the percentage change on the first staircase was set to zero for illustration purposes. The error bars indicate the (between subject) standard error of the mean. (TIFF 310 kb)

221_2012_3329_MOESM3_ESM.tif

Supplementary material figure 2: Learning rate dominant vs. non-dominant hand (on second session) The estimated marginal means for the within-session decrease of the second session of the dominant hand (day 2) and non-dominant hand (day 5), expressed as the percentage change of staircase two, three and four with respect to the first staircase in the session. The value for the percentage change on the first staircase was set to zero for illustration purposes. The error bars indicate the (between subject) standard error of the mean. (TIFF 486 kb)

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Kaas, A.L., van de Ven, V., Reithler, J. et al. Tactile perceptual learning: learning curves and transfer to the contralateral finger. Exp Brain Res 224, 477–488 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00221-012-3329-8

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