TITLE:
Transfer of Visuomotor Adaptation to Unpractised Hands and Sensory Modalities
AUTHORS:
Otmar Bock, Gerd Schmitz
KEYWORDS:
Sensorimotor Adaptation; Motor Learning; Intermanual; Intersensory; Transfer
JOURNAL NAME:
Psychology,
Vol.4 No.12,
December
26,
2013
ABSTRACT:
A recent model (Bock, 2013) predicts that
sensorimotor adaptation, achieved while pointing at visual targets, will
transfer fully to acoustic targets. The model further predicts that
visual-to-acoustic transfer is not diminished even if the left and right arms
have adapted to a different distortion. To scrutinize these predictions, we
asked subjects to point at visual targets with their right hands under a +30
deg rotation of visual feedback (group “single”), or alternately, with their
right hands under a +30 deg and with their left hands under a -30 deg rotation
of visual feedback. Aftereffects were registered for each hand and for visual
as well as acoustic targets, in counterbalanced order. We found that acoustic
aftereffects were only about 66% of visual ones, which violates the first
prediction and calls for an amendment of the model. We further found that
acoustic aftereffects were of similar magnitude in both groups, which supports
the second prediction. Finally, we observed an intermanual transfer of only
about 29%. These findings suggest that unpractised acoustic inputs are weighted
somewhat lower than practised visual ones, and that outputs to the unpractised
left hand are weighted substantially lower than those to the practised right
hand.