Automatic and non-automatic finger and leg movements measured with functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS)

This dataset includes the data of 24 participants performing automatic and non-automatic finger tapping and foot stepping movements in a block design measured with functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS). For the finger tapping tasks, participants needed to tap their right-hand fingers in the order of a 12-digit sequence on a numeric keypad, with 1, 2, 3, and 4 representing the index, middle, ring, and little finger, respectively. For the foot stepping tasks, participants needed to step with their right foot on four floor pads in the order of the same 12-digit sequence, with 1, 2, 3, and 4 representing a step in the middle, to the front, to the back, and to the side, respectively. Two different sequences of similar difficulty were learned (A:434141243212 and B:212321324241). One of the two was practiced 7 days before the experiment for 5 minutes a day each limb (considered the automatic sequences). The other sequence was only practiced for 5 minutes on the day of the experiment (considered the non-automatic sequence). Participants were pseudo-randomly assigned to start learning either sequence A or B in advance. Participants performed all four tasks under two conditions: either with or without a dual-task. The dual-task entailed performing the sequence while simultaneously counting the letter 'G' from a list of randomly appearing letters on the screen. fNIRS data was sampled from a multichannel device (24 long and 12 short separation channels) over the left primary motor cortex, the left premotor cortex, the left and right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, and the left and right posterior parietal cortex. When using this dataset, please also cite this paper: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuroimage.2023.119880 (Cockx et al., NeuroImage. 2023)