Does the Duration of Breaks in Learning Sensorimotor Tasks Influence Performance? – An Age-Differentiated Laboratory Study

Abstract

For investigating the influence of breaks on the learning time of sensorimotor tasks, a laboratory study with 48 participants in two age groups was conducted. The experimental task was the repeated assembly of a gear. After each trial participants had a break with different duration, depending on the experimental condition which varied in four values. To evaluate the performance, execution times and assembly errors of each trial were measured. The results show significant learning effects and a significant difference between the execution times of both age groups. No significant difference was found between the age groups concerning assembly errors.