Modifying established motor skills is a challenging endeavor due to proactive interference from undesired old to desired new actions, calling for high levels of cognitive control. Motor restrictions may facilitate the modification of motor skills by rendering undesired responses physically impossible, thus reducing demands to response inhibition. Here we studied behavioral and EEG effects of rule changes to typing in skilled touch-typists. The respective rule change—typing without using the left index finger—was either implemented per instruction only or with an additional motor restriction. In both groups, the rule change elicited delays and more errors in typing, indicating the occurrence of proactive interference. While stimulus-locked ERPs did not exhibit prominent effects of rule change or group, response-locked ERPs revealed that the time courses of preparatory brain activity preceding typing responses depended on the presence of motor restriction. Although further research is necessary to corroborate our findings, they indicate a novel brain correlate that represents changes in inhibitory response preparation induced by short-term motor restrictions.

修改已建立的运动技能是一项具有挑战性的工作，因为从不想要的旧动作到想要的新动作的主动干扰，需要高水平的认知控制。运动限制可以通过使不希望的反应在物理上变得不可能来促进运动技能的修改，从而减少对反应抑制的需求。在这里，我们研究了规则更改对熟练触摸打字员打字的行为和脑电图影响。相应的规则更改——不使用左手食指打字——要么仅根据指令实施，要么附加运动限制​​。在这两组中，规则更改导致了打字延迟和更多错误，表明发生了主动干扰。虽然刺激锁定的 ERP 没有表现出规则改变或群体的显着影响，反应锁定 ERP 显示，在打字反应之前大脑准备活动的时间进程取决于运动限制的存在。尽管需要进一步的研究来证实我们的研究结果，但它们表明了一种新的大脑相关性，它代表了由短期运动限制引起的抑制反应准备的变化。