A Computational Framework for Motor Skill Acquisition
This work addresses the need for a computational explanation of motor skill learning, which is incremental as it builds on prior qualitative models like Verwey's DPM.
The authors tackled the problem of providing a computational basis for motor skill acquisition by proposing a quantitative framework that combines model-based and model-free reinforcement learning, showing agreement with existing qualitative models and statistical fit to human data in tasks like grid-world.
There have been numerous attempts in explaining the general learning behaviours by various cognitive models. Multiple hypotheses have been put further to qualitatively argue the best-fit model for motor skill acquisition task and its variations. In this context, for a discrete sequence production (DSP) task, one of the most insightful models is Verwey's Dual Processor Model (DPM). It largely explains the learning and behavioural phenomenon of skilled discrete key-press sequences without providing any concrete computational basis of reinforcement. Therefore, we propose a quantitative explanation for Verwey's DPM hypothesis by experimentally establishing a general computational framework for motor skill learning. We attempt combining the qualitative and quantitative theories based on a best-fit model of the experimental simulations of variations of dual processor models. The fundamental premise of sequential decision making for skill learning is based on interacting model-based (MB) and model-free (MF) reinforcement learning (RL) processes. Our unifying framework shows the proposed idea agrees well to Verwey's DPM and Fitts' three phases of skill learning. The accuracy of our model can further be validated by its statistical fit with the human-generated data on simple environment tasks like the grid-world.