Adaptation to sensory-motor reflex perturbations is blind to the source of errors.

ABSTRACT: In the study of visual-motor control, perhaps the most familiar findings involve adaptation to externally imposed movement errors. Theories of visual-motor adaptation based on optimal information processing suppose that the nervous system identifies the sources of errors to effect the most efficient adaptive response. We report two experiments using a novel perturbation based on stimulating a visually induced reflex in the reaching arm. Unlike adaptation to an external force, our method induces a perturbing reflex within the motor system itself, i.e., perturbing forces are self-generated. This novel method allows a test of the theory that error source information is used to generate an optimal adaptive response. If the self-generated source of the visually induced reflex perturbation is id

SUBMITTER: Hudson TE 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3267976 | biostudies-literature | 2012 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature