Cognitive-Motor Learning in Virtual Reality Enhances Processing Speed and Processing Speed Efficacy in Healthy Adults

Cognitive-motor learning (CML) interventions hold promise for enhancing both cognitive and motor performance, yet a deeper understanding of their underlying mechanisms is essential to optimize their application. This study determined whether a virtual reality (VR)-based CML intervention can improve cognitive-motor speed efficacy (CMSE) in a perceptual-motor task by enhancing processing speed and/or decision making in healthy young adults. Sixty-two participants were assigned to experimental and control conditions before completing a 12-week VR-based CML training protocol composed of a baseline assessment, eight weekly training sessions, a post-test, and a transfer test. Performance was evaluated using response time, CMSE, decision accuracy and proprietary composite performance indexes (Metascore, Zetascore). The experimental group demonstrated clear CML compared to controls, who only showed an effect of practice. Learning gains also transferred to a similar task with new perceptual-motor associations and were mainly driven by faster response times rather than improved decision-making. The saturation trajectories of the novel Metascore and Zetascore indexes appear to reflect the associative and autonomous stages of learning, respectively, with response time serving as a key factor in this progression. These findings underscore the value of composite performance indexes for capturing the dynamics of CML and providing a foundation for future applications in athletic and professional performance optimization and neurorehabilitation.