engleski

Contralateral transfer of learning unibrachial movement in right-handed subjects.

The aim of this investigation was to find out possible differences in the transfer of learning unibrachial movements from right to left arm, and vice versa. Two groups of 20 right-handed female subjects (18–20 years) were trained to execute arch movements of 20, 40, 60, and 80 degrees by lower arms without visual control. One group started the training with right arm, followed by the left, and the other group started with the left arm, followed by right. Every subject had 25 trials with each of the four movement amplitudes, by both arms. For every trial, decision time (time from the signal to the start of movement) and movement time (from the start to the end of movement) were recorded (ms). After this procedure with one arm, the subjects started training with the opposite arm. As might have been expected, results showed the effects of movement amplitudes and the dexterity on movement time. Decision time, however, was the same for all the movement amplitudes of the same arm, but it was shorter for right arm movements. This means that execution programmes of the learned movements need the same time to be activated regardless of their amplitudes. Shorter decision times for the right arm movements were due to the shorter path and the time needed for the information from the movement programming centre in the left hemisphere to get to the primary motor cortex of the same hemisphere. There were no differences in movement and decision times for right arm between the groups. The group who started training with right arm, however, had shorter times for the left arm, which suggests that transfer occurred only from the right to left arm, but not vice versa.

hand dominance, transfer of learning, unibrachial movements

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