Undergraduate Research & Scholarships

Yifei Chen SURF SMART

How Does Memory Capacity Impact Motor Learning?

How does our memory capacity impact our ability to learn new motor skills, like dancing or playing an instrument? Specifically, why is it harder to learn many new movement patterns at once? Is it better to learn new movements sequentially, or is it better to learn new movements in parallel? Throughout the summer, my mentor and I will ask how memory capacity impacts motor learning. To test this, we will use a wide range of behavior experiment designs, observing how participants acquire and adapt their movements in response to feedback using high-resolution motion tracking. In addition, I will draw insights from these kinematic data using software packages like R or Python. By the end of the summer, we hope to gain insights into the relationship between memory capacity and motor learning.

Message To Sponsor

Thank you so much for supporting me to continue to pursue research with less stress on financing. Through this exciting opportunity, I aim to continue to build a strong foundation in research and find out whether I want to pursue it in the future. Again, I am truly grateful for your generosity, and I hope to give back to the community in the future by helping people who are in a similar position as I do.
Profile image of Yifei Chen
Major: Cognitive Science
Mentor: Jonathan Tsay
Sponsor: Shin Morgan Fund
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