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Between-trial inhibition and facilitation in goal-directed aiming: manual and spatial asymmetries

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Abstract

Three experiments were conducted with right-handed participants to examine between-trial inhibition and facilitation effects in goal-directed aiming. Participants were required to execute rapid left-hand or right-hand aiming movements upon illumination of a target light in left or right space. Thus, from trial to trial, participants executed movements to either the same target location or a different target location with the either same hand or the other hand. Our reaction time results indicated that participants were particularly slow in initiating their movements when they were required to return to the same target location with the other hand. This was especially the case when the right hand was required to move to a target just occupied by the left hand. For both reaction time and movement time the right hand but not the left hand exhibited an advantage when it was required to perform the same movement two times in a row. Taken together these results suggest that inhibition of return, in a target-target paradigm, is more associated with the particular spatial location of the target than the organization of a specific movement to that location. Moreover, the between-trial facilitation observed for the right hand may reflect the ability of the left cerebral hemisphere to maintain an already parameterized motor program over a short intertrial interval.

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Notes

  1. Here inhibition and facilitation effects refer to relatively faster or slower reaction or movement times for responses to target locations. Although these temporal effects are likely the result of different patterns of neural events, we draw no conclusions about the specific neural events that lead to the behavioral differences; for a review of the possible neural coding of such effects in the oculomotor system of nonhuman primates see Fecteau and Munoz (2003).

  2. Note that in protocols 1 and 3 the participants were not provided with any stimulus information at the central fixation point as the participants were in protocol 2. Despite this difference in presented stimulus information the participants in protocols 1 and 3 were told that it would be to their “advantage” to fixate centrally prior to the onset of the target as it would help to identify the location of the target more quickly (see also Tipper et al.1992; Welsh and Elliott 2004a). Given these instructions and the general acceptance of the instructions by the participants in previous work, it is assumed that there were no differences in the participants’ use of the central fixation point between the different protocols.

  3. For protocol 2 the peak velocity analysis also revealed a prior hand by hand interaction (F(1,10)=13.93, P≤.01. Specifically right-hand movements that followed right-hand movements achieved significantly higher peak velocities (885 mm/s) than left-hand movements that followed left-hand movements (864 mm/s), while there was no difference between the right hand (878 mm/s) and left hand (882 mm/s) peak velocities when the prior hand was different. This finding is consistent with the idea that movement time facilitation effects associated with the right hand are due to feedforward processes.

  4. Cherry and Hellige (1999) have reported left space-right hemisphere advantages for sustained attention that are mediated by the hand used to detect a visual signal. In the case of our IOR protocol it may be that this type of attentional asymmetry is associated with the right hemisphere being able to maintain inhibition, as opposed to vigilance, over a longer period of time.

  5. We thank an anonymous reviewer for, suggesting this experiment.

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Acknowledgements

This research was funded by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada and the Canada Research Chair Programme.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada

    Luc Tremblay & Timothy N. Welsh

  2. McMaster University, Hamilton, ON, L8S 4K1, Canada

    Timothy N. Welsh & Digby Elliott

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  1. Luc Tremblay
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  2. Timothy N. Welsh
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  3. Digby Elliott
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Correspondence to Digby Elliott.

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Tremblay, L., Welsh, T.N. & Elliott, D. Between-trial inhibition and facilitation in goal-directed aiming: manual and spatial asymmetries. Exp Brain Res 160, 79–88 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00221-004-1987-x

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