Effects of self-control of feedback timing on motor learning.

Introduction: Although the effects of self-control on motor learning have been well studied, the effects of self-controlled feedback timing have not been thoroughly investigated. Therefore, this study aimed to examine the effects of self-controlled feedback timing on motor learning through two experiments.

Methods: In Experiment 1, participants were randomly assigned to one of three groups: concurrent feedback, terminal feedback, or self-controlled feedback. The procedure included a pre-test, practice session, and a retention test conducted 1 week after the practice, with visual feedback provided only during the practice session. Participants also completed three subscales of the Intrinsic Motivation Inventory before/after the practice session and the NASA-Task Load Index (NASA-TLX) after the practice session. In Experiment 2, participants were randomly assigned to either a self-controlled feedback group or a yoked feedback group, following the same procedure as in Experiment 1.

Results: In Experiment 1, the concurrent feedback group demonstrated the smallest performance errors during practice, while the terminal feedback group showed the largest performance errors. However, both the self-controlled and terminal feedback groups exhibited significantly smaller errors than the concurrent feedback group in the retention test. In Experiment 2, the self-controlled group made significantly fewer errors than the yoked group in the retention test. The self-controlled group showed significantly higher intrinsic motivation and significantly lower scores in the performance subscale of NASA-TLX than the yoked group.

Conclusion: In the present study, concurrent visual feedback interfered with motor learning by inducing a dependency on visual feedback. Our findings suggest that self-controlled feedback timing may overcome the potential negative effects of concurrent visual feedback through the positive influence of self-control, which may arise through the involvement of both intrinsic motivation and information processing.