Dependence on visual feedback during motor skill learning in Alzheimer's disease

Three experiments examined the role of visual feedback on the performance o f a fine motor task, namely the rotary pursuit, in patients with Alzheimer' s disease (AD) and healthy older adults. After extensive practice tracking a fully visible target, participants in Experiments 1 and 2 were tested und er restricted vision (RV) conditions. In both experiments, the two groups s howed a drop in performance when vision was restricted, with AD patients sh owing a significantly larger decline. Tracking improved significantly in no rmal controls, but not AD patients across the RV trials after the initial d rop. When difficulty of the rotary pursuit task was manipulated in Experime nt 3 without restricting vision, AD patients and normal controls showed ide ntical patterns of performance. Consequently, it could be concluded that AD patients in the first two experiments were relying more heavily on visual information for accurate performance of the tracking task than their health y peers.