and submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts (Psychology) complies with the regulations of the University and meets the accepted standards with respect to originality and quality. Abstract Simulation of Cognitive Aging and Effects of Cognitive Load on Finger Sequencing Performance Yana Korotkevich The purpose of the current study was to examine the e...

Sequential organization is central to much of human intelligent behavior ranging from everyday skills such as lacing shoes to using a computer. It is well known that such sequential skills involve chaining a number of primitive actions together.. A robust representation of skills can be formed by chunking together several elements of a sequence. We demonstrate, using a 2x6 finger movement task,...

The ability to perform accurate sequential movements is essential to normal motor function. Learning a sequential motor behavior is comprised of two basic components: explicit identification of the order in which the sequence elements should be performed and implicit acquisition of spatial accuracy for each element. Here we investigated the time course of learning of these components for a firs...

Performing a complex sequential finger movement requires the temporally well-ordered organization of individual finger movements. Previous behavioural studies have suggested that the brain prepares a whole sequence of movements as a single set, rather than the movements of individual fingers. However, direct neuroimaging support for this hypothesis is lacking and, assuming it to be true, it rem...

Despite their purported neuroanatomic and functional isolation, empirical evidence suggests that sometimes conscious explicit processes can influence implicit motor skill learning. Our goal was to determine if the provision of explicit information affected implicit motor-sequence learning after damage to the basal ganglia. Individuals with stroke affecting the basal ganglia (BG) and healthy con...

Movement representations within the human primary motor and somatosensory cortices can be altered by motor learning. Decreases in local GABA concentration and its release may facilitate this plasticity. Here we use in vivo magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) to noninvasively measure serial changes in GABA concentration in humans in a brain region including the primary sensorimotor cortex cont...

We investigated the acquisition and integration of temporal and ordinal sequence information in an incidental learning model of motor skill acquisition (the serial reaction time task). Human participants were exposed to a stimulus-response sequence that had temporal structure, ordinal structure, or both. By changing the temporal or ordinal structure, or both, we were able to ask two questions: ...

Sequence-specific postural motor learning in a target-directed weight-shifting task in 12 older and 12 young participants was assessed. In the implicit sequence learning condition participants performed a concurrent spatial cognitive task and in the two explicit conditions participants were required to discover the sequence order either with or without the concurrent cognitive task. Participant...

This review paper focuses on studies in healthy human subjects that examined the functional neuroanatomy and cerebral plasticity associated with the learning, consolidation and retention phases of motor skilled behaviors using modern brain imaging techniques. Evidence in support of a recent model proposed by Doyon and Ungerleider [Functional Anatomy of Motor Skill Learning. In: Squire LR, Schac...

Our motor and auditory systems are functionally connected during musical performance, and functional imaging suggests that the association is strong enough that passive music listening can engage the motor system. As predictive coding constrains movement sequence selections, could the motor system contribute to sequential processing of musical passages? If this is the case, then we hypothesized...