Abstract
BackgroundMotor learning requires evaluating performance in previous movements and modifying future movements. The executive system, generally involved in planning and decision-making, could monitor and modify behavior in response to changes in task difficulty or performance. Here we aim to identify the quantitative cognitive contribution to responsive and adaptive control to identify possible overlap between cognitive and motor processes.Methodology/Principal FindingsWe developed a dual-task experiment that varied the trial-by-trial difficulty of a secondary cognitive task while participants performed a motor adaptation task. Subjects performed a difficulty-graded semantic categorization task while making reaching movements that were occasionally subjected to force perturbations. We find that motor adaptation was specifically impaired on the most difficult to categorize trials.Conclusions/SignificanceWe suggest that the degree of decision-level difficulty of a particular categorization differentially burdens the executive system and subsequently results in a proportional degradation of adaptation. Our results suggest a specific quantitative contribution of executive control in motor adaptation.
Highlights
Monitoring performance and updating future behavior is an essential process underlying motor adaptation
Conclusions/Significance: We suggest that the degree of decision-level difficulty of a particular categorization differentially burdens the executive system and subsequently results in a proportional degradation of adaptation
We found that when the frequency discrimination task (FD) task was temporally coincident with a movement error in the perturbed movement, adaptation on the following movement was significantly impaired
Summary
Monitoring performance and updating future behavior is an essential process underlying motor adaptation. The executive system, which is commonly referred to as attention or cognitive control, is functionally defined as the mechanism to orient and enhance sensory systems, and to coordinate output systems in a goal directed manner [6]. Orienting sensory systems to behaviorally relevant environmental stimuli [8] and enhancing information processing [9,10] is commonly referred to as attention, while defining goals and coordinating behavior is commonly referred to as cognitive control [5,6]. The executive system encompasses both of these processes to guide future behavior and monitor ongoing performance Both successful motor adaptation and accurate performance on cognitive tasks require performance monitoring and updating behavior following errors; these disparate tasks may share overlapping processing. We aim to identify the quantitative cognitive contribution to responsive and adaptive control to identify possible overlap between cognitive and motor processes
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