Effector's independence in complex bimanual coordination drawing tasks

The present study examined whether the bimanual coordination drawing task with high spatial interference can be transferred to the new effector configuration in contra lateral or ipsilateral. In Exp1, for examining the inter manual transfer (contra lateral effector transfer), first subjects practiced the line- star task (i.e. left arm traced the line/ right arm traced the star) and then transferred this pattern to its symmetry partner (the star- linetask(i.e. the left arm traced the star/ the right arm traced the line). In Exp2, intra manual transfer (ipsi lateral effector transfer), from the shoulder- elbow joints to the wrist- finger joints and vice versa, was investigated. The results showed the positive inter and intra manual transfer, as the practiced patterns transferred across the unpractised effector systems. It is concluded that learning to spatially dissociate of the both limbs is transferable to different motor conditions. It is hypothesised that the nature of the representation of the spatial interference task is largely effector independent.