Effect of progressive visual error amplification on human motor adaptation

Amplification of error has been shown to be an effective technique in increasing the rate and extent of learning for motor tasks and has the potential to accelerate rehabilitation following motor impairment. However, current error amplification methods suffer from reduced effectiveness towards the end of training. In this paper, we propose a new approach, progressive error amplification, in which error gains increase as a trainee's performance improves. We tested this approach against conventional error augmentation in a controlled experiment wherein 30 subjects adapted to a visually distorted environment by performing target-hitting tasks under one of three conditions (control, constant error amplification, progressive error amplification). Our results showed that compared with repeated practice, error amplification does not accelerate learning or result in improved task performance with respect to trajectory error, although progressive error amplification does produce lower trajectory errors when training conditions are in effect. These results indicate a need for further tuning of error augmentation methods in order to determine their true potential as a training method.