General skill learning appears to occur during rest periods, but fatigue release cannot be excluded as an explanation¶

Claim · All claims
Evidence · 1 study (2 entries) · causal r2 · q3
Currency · newest study 2021 · not yet checked against its sources · not reviewed by a person

Subclaims¶

q3 i? General skill performance decreased during practice and increased during rest in all three experiments. → Romain Quentin 2021 q3 i? The offline gain persisted after first blocks with no within-block performance decrement, but the design does not allow a firm conclusion against fatigue release. → Romain Quentin 2021 (2)

Evidence¶

Romain Quentin 2021¶

Romain Quentin, Lison Fanuel, Mariann Kiss, Marine Vernet, Teodóra Vékony, Karolina Janacsek, Leonardo G. Cohen and Dezso Nemeth. (2021). Statistical learning occurs during practice while high-order rule learning during rest period. npj Science of Learning 6:14. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41539-021-00093-9

q3 · i? · causal · r2

Online/offline decomposition of average RT per block in all three experiments (SRT and two ASRT tasks). The article reports practice decreases and rest increases (e.g., Experiment 1 Moffline = 37.22 ± 24.78 s, d = 1.52) in general skill performance.

"general skill performance decreased during practice (Experiment 1: Monline = −24.58 ± 22.79 s, t(62) = −8.49, p <1 0−11, d = 1.09; Experiment 2: Monline = −24.23 ± 9.37 s, t(179) = −34.61, p <1 0−80, d = 2.49; Experiment 3: Monline = −13.97 ± 6.63 s, t(24) = −10.32, p <1 0−9, d = 2.11)"

Romain Quentin 2021 (2)¶

Romain Quentin, Lison Fanuel, Mariann Kiss, Marine Vernet, Teodóra Vékony, Karolina Janacsek, Leonardo G. Cohen and Dezso Nemeth. (2021). Statistical learning occurs during practice while high-order rule learning during rest period. npj Science of Learning 6:14. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41539-021-00093-9

q3 · i? · causal · r2

Control analysis restricted to first blocks of sessions, where no within-block fatigue decrement was observed; following rest periods still showed general skill performance increases (e.g., Experiment 1 Moffline = 43.44 ± 46.59 s, d = 0.93).

"No decrease in performance occurred during these first session blocks and even a modest performance increase occurred in Experiment 1 (Experiment 1: Monline = 11.13 ± 37.82 s, t(62) = 2.32, p = 0.02, d = 0.30)"

Discussion¶

Related Claims¶

• Halving practice-period duration from 10 s to 5 s leaves micro-offline gains unchanged, arguing against recovery from motor fatigue — reports the opposite
• Performance improvements during early motor skill learning occur predominantly during short rest periods (micro-offline gains), replicated in a large crowdsourced sample and in a laboratory study — related
• Efficiency in the work curve is conditioned by factors beyond fatigue proper: practice, adaptation, preparedness, warming up, spurts, voluntary effort, ennui, and diurnal rhythms (Offner) — a broader claim this one bears on
• Micro-offline gains are inconsistent with a dominant contribution of latent motor slowing, supporting consolidation as their driver — reports the opposite
• Random termination of practice periods does not reduce micro-offline gains, ruling out preemptive motor slowing — reports the opposite
• Offline change in general skill between sessions 12 h apart was significant, but between sessions a week apart was not — related
• Statistical learning in the ASRT task increases during practice periods and decreases during rest periods — related