Abstract
The ability to switch between different visuomotor maps accurately and efficiently is an invaluable feature to a flexible and adaptive human motor system. This can be examined in dual adaptation paradigms where the motor system is challenged to perform under randomly switching, opposing perturbations. Typically, dual adaptation doesn’t proceed unless each mapping is trained in association with a predictive cue. To investigate this, we first explored whether dual adaptation occurs under a variety of contextual cues including active follow-through movements, passive follow-through movements, active lead-in movements, and static visual cues. In the second experiment, we provided one group with a compensatory strategy about the perturbations (30° CW and 30° CCW rotations) and their relationships to each context (static visual cues). We found that active, but not passive, movement cues elicited dual adaptation. Expectedly, we didn’t find evidence for dual adaptation using static visual cues, but those in the Instruction group compensated by implementing aiming strategies. Then, across all experimental conditions, we explored the extent by which dual learning is supported by both implicit and explicit mechanisms, regardless of whether they elicited dual adaptation across all the various cues. To this end, following perturbed training, participants from all experiments were asked to either use or ignore the strategy as they reached without visual feedback. This Process Dissociation Procedure teased apart the implicit and explicit contributions to dual adaptation. Critically, we didn’t find evidence for implicit learning for those given instructions, suggesting that when explicit aiming strategies are implemented in dual adaptation, implicit mechanisms are likely not involved. Thus, by implementing conscious strategies, dual adaptation can be easily facilitated even in cases where learning would not occur otherwise.
Highlights
While it has always been imperative for humans to learn to manipulate new tools, with the rise of modern technologies we are often required to operate and switch under multiple different visuomotor mappings
ABA paradigms probe how an internal model can be affected by the subsequent learning of another, while dual adaptation paradigms have the advantage of challenging the motor system to learn, acquire, and switch between multiple internal models, mimicking its daily demands
Differential contributions of implicit and explicit learning mechanisms in dual adaptation generated follow-through motion) and replaced it with a passive visual-only follow-through that mimicked that motion. We found that both active movement cues elicited dual adaptation and were able to provide a stronger contextual cue compared to the passive movement cue
Summary
While it has always been imperative for humans to learn to manipulate new tools, with the rise of modern technologies we are often required to operate and switch under multiple different visuomotor mappings. This ability to switch between different tasks accurately and efficiently is an invaluable feature to a flexible and adaptive human motor system. To isolate the planning component, participants saw both initial (perturbed) and follow-through targets as they initiated their reach, but the follow-through target was extinguished to signal to participants that a follow-through motion is not required Their main finding, that compensation occurs even in the absence of the execution of the follow-through, suggests that the key component in representing motor adaptation lies in action planning, and not in the act of executing a physically different limb state [12]
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