Effect of attention of focus feedback on error-detection capability in bimanual coordination task

The aim of present investigation was to study the effect of attention of focus feedback on the error-detection capability. Forty eight (24 males and 24 females) undergraduate students who participated in this study voluntarily divided into four experimental groups according to estimation condition (estimation/no estimation) and focus of feedback (internal/external). The task was bimanual coordination that the subjects should to move two slides from back to front to produce given relative phase (in phase) and move a pointer to intercept a ball at given movement time. Mixed factorial analysis of variance (ANOVA) showed that in acquisition phase, there were the estimation and feedback interaction effect on relative phase and estimation, feedback and trials interaction effect on movement time for Absolute Constant Error (ACE) and Root-Mean-Square-Error (RMSE). In addition, in the retention phase, there was an estimation and feedback interaction effect on relative phase for ACE, so no estimation-internal and estimation-external groups were better than other groups. In conclusion, learners' sensitiveness to sensory information that focuses their attention to movement effect or external-focus comparing to movement itself or internal-focus, increase learning. Thus, one of the effects of external-focus feedback on motor learning is error-detection capability that it added to other mechanisms that proposed in this regard previously.