Sleep saves the effector independent representation of a motor skill

During off-line memory consolidation a motor skill is less vulnerable to interference (stabilisation) and significantly enhances in performance (enhancement). In the present study we test the hypothesis if off-line consolidation of motor memories contributes in the process of generalisation in the motor domain. Participants learned with their left hand a sequential finger tapping task sensitive for motor skill learning. Generalisation was tested by the ability to transfer the original sequence (extrinsic transformation) or the mirror sequence (intrinsic transformation) to the right hand in contrast to a new sequ…