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Real-time error detection but not error correction drives automatic visuomotor adaptation

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Abstract

We investigated the role of visual feedback of task performance in visuomotor adaptation. Participants produced novel two degrees of freedom movements (elbow flexion–extension, forearm pronation–supination) to move a cursor towards visual targets. Following trials with no rotation, participants were exposed to a 60° visuomotor rotation, before returning to the non-rotated condition. A colour cue on each trial permitted identification of the rotated/non-rotated contexts. Participants could not see their arm but received continuous and concurrent visual feedback (CF) of a cursor representing limb position or post-trial visual feedback (PF) representing the movement trajectory. Separate groups of participants who received CF were instructed that online modifications of their movements either were, or were not, permissible as a means of improving performance. Feedforward-mediated performance improvements occurred for both CF and PF groups in the rotated environment. Furthermore, for CF participants this adaptation occurred regardless of whether feedback modifications of motor commands were permissible. Upon re-exposure to the non-rotated environment participants in the CF, but not PF, groups exhibited post-training aftereffects, manifested as greater angular deviations from a straight initial trajectory, with respect to the pre-rotation trials. Accordingly, the nature of the performance improvements that occurred was dependent upon the timing of the visual feedback of task performance. Continuous visual feedback of task performance during task execution appears critical in realising automatic visuomotor adaptation through a recalibration of the visuomotor mapping that transforms visual inputs into appropriate motor commands.

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Notes

  1. This torque was determined for each participant on an individual basis to account for differences in the weight and length of participants’ arms.

  2. As a precaution to help prevent this scenario, the servo-motors controlling movement in each degree of freedom were programmed with elastic ‘walls’ at the limits of the visual display, i.e., very large torques were required to move beyond a 60° rotation from the start position. If the manipulandum approached these limits, participants would feel a strong spring-like force that repelled them away from region corresponding to the edge of the visual display. We note, however, that no participants hit the ‘walls’ within the experimental trials.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Perception and Motor Systems Laboratory, School of Human Movement Studies, University of Queensland, Brisbane, 4072, Australia

    Mark R. Hinder, Stephan Riek, James R. Tresilian, Aymar de Rugy & Richard G. Carson

  2. Motor Control Laboratory, School of Psychology, University of Tasmania, Private Bag 30, Tasmania, 7001, Australia

    Mark R. Hinder

  3. Department of Psychology, University of Warwick, Coventry, CV4 7AL, UK

    James R. Tresilian

  4. School of Psychology, Queen’s University Belfast, Belfast, BT7 1NN, Northern Ireland, UK

    Richard G. Carson

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  1. Mark R. Hinder
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  2. Stephan Riek
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  3. James R. Tresilian
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  4. Aymar de Rugy
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  5. Richard G. Carson
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Correspondence to Mark R. Hinder.

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Hinder, M.R., Riek, S., Tresilian, J.R. et al. Real-time error detection but not error correction drives automatic visuomotor adaptation. Exp Brain Res 201, 191–207 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00221-009-2025-9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00221-009-2025-9

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