INTERMANUAL TRANSFER OF RETRIEVAL-INDUCED FORGETTING IN MOTOR SEQUENCE LEARNING

Abstract

Previous studies have found that Retrieval-Induced Forgetting (RIF) affects motor-sequence learning on the keyboard, but no studies have examined whether practicing with a different effector induces forgetting. This experiment examined whether left-hand practice causes competition and induces forgetting of other right-hand learned, but unpracticed keyboard sequences using mouse sequences as memory baseline. This experiment used two primary ways through which right hand movements can be translated onto left hands, transpositional translation (same visual representations but different fingers) and mirrored translation (same fingers but reversed visual representations) of right-hand sequences on left hand to examine whether they induced forgetting differently. RIF appeared in all three between-subject groups such that the overall recall accuracy for practiced keyboard sequences (Rp+) was higher than that of the unpracticed sequences, and the recall accuracy for unpracticed keyboard sequences (Rp-) was lower than that of the unpracticed mouse sequences (Nrp). However, RIF did not vary across groups: right hand, left-hand transposition, and left-hand mirror practice all induced forgetting with no interaction with sequence types. The present findings are consistent with an abstract representation of sequential finger movements that can be translated across hands such that retrieval-practice on a different hand could induce forgetting of motor sequences originally learned on the other.