Haptic human-human interaction does not improve individual visuomotor adaptation
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Haptic interaction between two humans, for example, parents physically supporting their child while it learns to keep balance on a bicycle, likely facilitates motor skill acquisition. Haptic human-human interaction has been shown to enhance individual motor improvement in a tracking task with a visuomotor rotation perturbation. These results are remarkable given that haptically assisting or guiding an individual rarely improves their motor improvement when the assistance is removed. We, therefore, replicated a study that reported benefits of haptic interaction between humans on individual motor improvement for tracking a target in a visuomotor rotation. Also, we tested the effect of more interaction time and stronger haptic coupling between the partners on individual performance improvement in the same task. We found no benefits of haptic interaction on individual motor improvement compared to individuals who practised the task alone, independent of interaction time or interaction strength. We also found no effect of the interaction partner's skill level on individual motor improvement.
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