“The Effect of Rest Breaks on Human Sensorimotor Adaptation”, Otmar Bock, Monika Thomas, Valentina Grigorova2005-03-08 (spaced repetition)⁠:

[cf. Huang & Shadmehr2007] We have studied the effect of rest breaks on sensorimotor adaptation to rotated visual feedback in a pointing task.

Adaptive improvement was statistically-significantly poorer after 1-s breaks than after 5–40-s breaks, with no statistically-significant difference among the latter break durations.

The benefit of >1-s breaks emerged soon after the onset of adaptation, and then remained steady throughout the adaptation, retention (next day), and persistence (no feedback) phases.

This pattern of findings indicates that break-induced facilitation is not a result of strategic adjustments, motivation, or recovery from fatigue, but rather to consolidation of previously acquired sensorimotor recalibration rules.

[Keywords: motor learning, massed practice, distributed practice, adaptation, sensorimotor integration, humans]