Mean step mean acc. trunk X data.

The notion that young healthy adults can substantially improve in activities that are part of their daily routine is often overlooked because it is assumed that such activities have come to be fully mastered. We followed, in young healthy adults, the effects of repeated executions of the Timed-Up-and-Go (TUG) task, a clinical test that assesses the ability to execute motor activities relevant to daily function—rising from a seated position, walking, turning and returning to a seated position. The participants (N = 15) performed 18 consecutive trials of the TUG in one session, and were retested on the following day and a week later. The participants were video recorded and wore inertial measurement units. Task execution times improved robustly; performance was well fitted by a power function, with large gains at the beginning of the session and nearing plateau in later trials, as one would expect in the learning of a novel task. Moreover, these gains were well retained overnight and a week later, with further gains accruing in the subsequent test-sessions. Significant intra-session and inter-session changes occurred in step kinematics as well; some aspects underwent inter-sessions recalibrations, but other aspects showed delayed inter-session changes, suggesting post-practice memory consolidation processes. Even common everyday tasks can be improved upon by practice; a small number of consecutive task repetitions can trigger lasting gains in young healthy individuals performing highly practiced routine tasks. This new learning in highly familiar tasks proceeded in a time-course characteristic of the acquisition of novel ‘how to’ (procedural) knowledge.

健康年轻成年人在日常常规活动中可获得显著提升的观点，常被忽视——这是因为人们通常认为这类活动早已被完全掌握。我们针对健康年轻成年人，探究了重复执行计时起身行走（Timed-Up-and-Go, TUG）任务的影响：该临床测试用于评估与日常功能相关的运动执行能力，包括从坐姿站起、行走、转身并回到坐姿。本次研究的15名受试者，在单次实验中连续完成18次TUG任务测试，并于次日及一周后接受复测。所有受试者均被录像记录，且佩戴了惯性测量单元（inertial measurement unit）。任务执行时间得到显著提升；受试者的表现可通过幂函数良好拟合：单次实验初期提升幅度较大，后续测试则逐渐趋近平台期，这与全新任务的学习规律相符。此外，这些性能提升在隔夜及一周后均得到良好保留，且在后续的复测中还能获得进一步提升。步态运动学参数同样出现了显著的实验内与实验间变化：部分参数在实验间完成了重新校准，而另一些参数则呈现出延迟的实验间变化，这暗示了练习后的记忆巩固过程。即便常见的日常活动，也可通过练习得到优化；仅需少量连续的任务重复，就能让执行高度熟练的常规任务的健康年轻成年人获得持久的性能提升。这种在高度熟悉任务中产生的新学习过程，其时间进程符合新型“怎么做”（程序性）知识的习得特征。