Structural Learning Benefits in a Visuomotor Adaptation Task Generalize to a Contralateral Effector

Abstract

Structural learning is characterized by facilitated adaptation following training on a set of sensory perturbations all belonging to the same structure (e.g., ‘visuomotor rotations’). This generalization of learning is a core feature of the motor system and is often studied in the context of interlimb transfer. However, such transfer has only been demonstrated when participants learn to counter a specific perturbation in the sensory feedback of their movements; we determined whether structural learning in one limb generalized to the contralateral limb. We trained 13 participants to counter random visual feedback rotations between +/-90 degrees with the right hand and subsequently tested the left hand on a fixed rotation. The structural training group showed faster adaptation in the left hand in both feedforward and feedback components of reaching compared to 13 participants who trained with veridical reaching, with lower initial reaching error, and straighter, faster, and smoother movements than in the control group. The transfer was ephemeral – benefits were confined to roughly the first 20 trials. The results demonstrate that the motor system can extract invariant properties of seemingly random environments in one limb, and that this information can be accessed by the contralateral limb.