A Study of Comparison of Implicit Learning in Post Stroke and Age-Matched Elderly Subjects
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Materials and method: Subjects were asked to perform sequences of hand movements in response to target lights in 2 conditions: a patterned sequence and a random sequence. They were not given explicit knowledge of 2 conditions. The SRT to perform both patterned and random sequence activity was measured and comparison was done between both groups. On second day SRT of patterned sequence activity was measured for both groups to test retention.
Results: The mean SRT for both groups showed statistically significant decrease with patterned sequence(mean difference-elderly:3.745, stroke:5.108) increase with random sequence (mean difference-elderly:2.792, stroke:3.592) and again decrease with reintroduction of patterned sequence(mean difference-elderly:1.762,stroke:2.423). There was statistically significant retention of implicit learning in both groups. Conclusion: Implicit Learning of Serial Response Time Task is preserved in post Stroke subjects since both the groups showed the similar trend of performance in all the blocks, however, speed of performance of post stroke subjects was slower than that of normal elderly subjects.