New insights in implicit sequence learning of adults with traumatic brain injury: As measured by an ocular serial reaction time (O-SRT) task.

Neuropsychology
Simone Schwizer AshkenaziEli Vakil

Abstract

Objective: We investigated the effect of traumatic brain injury (TBI) on implicit sequence learning (ISL) and its relation with demographic, clinical, and working memory (WM) capacity using an eye-tracked variant of the standard serial reaction time (RT; SRT) task. Besides RT, this ocular SRT (O-SRT) task enables generation of correct anticipations (CA) and stucks, reflecting other critical aspects of ISL. Method: ISL was tested in 26 individuals with TBI and 28 healthy controls using the O-SRT task. Mixed analyses of variance were conducted to analyze RT and CA in three phases: learning, interference, and recovery from interference. The average number of stucks was compared with an independent-samples t test. Finally, Pearson correlation analyses of ISL with demographic, clinical, and WM capacity measures were performed. Results: Based on RT, ISL was impaired in the TBI group. However, CA demonstrated improved learning, but with deficits in the interference and recovery from interference phases. Stucks were more frequent in the TBI group, which affected RT and CA measures. Neither demographic nor clinical factors were associated with ISL. Verbal, but not spatial, WM capacity was impaired in the TBI group, and spatial WM capaci...Continue Reading

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