The Effect of Mental Fatigue on Explicit and Implicit Contributions to Visuomotor Adaptation

Abstract

To date, mental fatigue has been shown to lead to a general decline in cognitive processing and motor performance. The goal of the current research was to establish the impact of mental fatigue on the contributions of explicit (i.e., conscious strategy) and implicit (unconscious) processes to visuomotor adaptation. Participants were divided into Mental Fatigue (MF) and Control groups. Mental fatigue was induced through a time load dual back task (TLDB), in which participants were required to respond as quickly and accurately as possible to letters based on recall of previously presented letters, as well as digits displayed on the screen in a choice reaction time task. The TLDB task lasted for 32 minutes, and the Control group watched a documentary for a similar length of time. Subjective feelings of mental fatigue, as indicated on a self-report scale, demonstrated that mental fatigue was significantly higher for the MF group after completion of the TLDB task. There was no similar increase in mental fatigue for the Control group. The increased mental fatigue was associated with decreased visuomotor adaptation to a 40° cursor rotation and retention of visuomotor adaptation. In particular, participants in the MF group adapted their reaches to a lesser extent early in training compared to the Control group and demonstrated less retention of visuomotor adaptation following a 20-minute rest. Furthermore, correlational analyses established that greater mental fatigue reported by participants in the MF group was associated with less explicit adaptation and greater implicit adaptation. Taken together, these results suggest that mental fatigue decreases the ability to engage in explicit processing, limiting the overall extent of visuomotor adaptation achieved.