From lab to real life: Is there a link between lab-based and ecological assessment of Procedural Perceptual-Motor Learning tasks?

Procedural Perceptual-Motor Learning (PPML) refers to the process leading to the acquisition of new motor skills through repeated practice. It is crucial to (re-)acquire skills needed in daily life and rehabilitation. It can be divided in two processes: motor sequence learning (SL) and sensorimotor adaptation (SA). SL refers to the acquisition of a sequence of actions that follows a precise order, while SA involves continuously adjusting motor outputs to compensate for environmental or internal disturbances. These two processes are typically measured using different lab-based tasks and are presumed to play a role in ecological/ naturalistic tasks. However, to our knowledge, no study examined the relationship between performance on lab-based tasks and ecological/ naturalistic tasks. To address this gap, we designed two lab-based tasks and six ecological tasks assessing SL and SA in an original research including 42 participants (young adults). After ensuring with non-parametric repeated measures ANOVA that all the tasks presented features of learning (all 15.1 <χ² < 142; p < 0.5), Spearman's rank correlation tests were performed between each lab-based task measuring SL and SA and the six ecological tasks. Our findings reveal low to moderate correlations between lab-based and ecological tasks measuring SL and SA (0.265 < rho < 0.395; p < 0.05). This suggests that the lab-based tasks partially reflect PPML as it occurs in everyday life. We believe that the partial ecological validity of these lab-based tasks is essential for their use, especially in the context of clinical evaluation prior to rehabilitation.