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Constraints on visuo-motor adaptation depend on the type of visual feedback during practice

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Abstract

Adaptation to a novel visuo-motor gain has been found to generalize across target directions, whereas simultaneous adaptation to different direction-related visuo-motor gains turned out to be impossible. We ask whether this is a rigid constraint on human adaptability or a soft constraint that can be overcome by optimized conditions of practice. In particular, we compared practice with continuous visual feedback, as used in previous studies, to practice with terminal visual feedback. With terminal visual feedback only the final positions of the movements are shown. Both kinds of visual feedback in principle can serve the acquisition of an internal model of direction-related visuo-motor gains, but with continuous feedback on-line visual closed-loop control permits accurate movements without access to an internal model. Whereas we found no indication of visuo-motor adaptation after continuous-feedback practice, there was adaptation after terminal-feedback practice. This was revealed both by (direction-related) adaptive shifts of movement amplitudes in an open-loop test with cued visuo-motor transformation and by (direction-related) aftereffects in an open-loop test with absence of the visuo-motor transformation being cued. None of the two groups gave evidence of explicit knowledge of the direction-related visuo-motor gains. These findings show that constraints on human adaptability can depend on the kind of experience with visuo-motor transformations, in particular on the kind of feedback during practice.

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Notes

  1. Typical measures in studies of adaptation to novel visuo-motor transformations are errors, which are gradually reduced in the course of practice, and aftereffects, which can be observed in the absence of the transformation. Aftereffects are “negative” relative to the errors that are induced by the transformation. Measures of adaptive changes, as we use them, are uncommon. They are equivalent to aftereffects in that they are “negative.” Aftereffects can be conceived as components of adaptive changes which persist in spite of the knowledge that the novel visuo-motor transformation is no longer in effect. Both adaptive changes and aftereffects are direct measures of the changes of the movements produced rather than of the effects of these changes on the output of the visuo-motor transformation. Nevertheless, adaptive changes can also be expressed in terms of cursor amplitude: for a given visuo-motor gain they are proportional to the difference between post-test amplitude and baseline-test amplitude multiplied by the gain. This again is the difference between post-test amplitude and the expected post-test amplitude in the absence of any adjustment to the novel visuo-motor gain.

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Acknowledgments

The research reported in this paper was supported by grant He 1187/15-1 of the Deutsche Forschungsgmeinschaft. We thank Barbara Herbst, Thorsten Klar, Steven Li, and Eckhard Rückemann for their support in setting up and running the experiment, and Digby Elliott and an anonymous reviewer for their helpful comments on an earlier version of the ms.

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  1. Institut für Arbeitsphysiologie an der Universität Dortmund, Ardeystraße 67, 44139, Dortmund, Germany

    Herbert Heuer & Mathias Hegele

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  1. Herbert Heuer
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  2. Mathias Hegele
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Correspondence to Herbert Heuer.

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Heuer, H., Hegele, M. Constraints on visuo-motor adaptation depend on the type of visual feedback during practice. Exp Brain Res 185, 101–110 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00221-007-1135-5

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