Skip to main content
bioRxiv
  • Home
  • About
  • Submit
  • ALERTS / RSS
Advanced Search
New Results

Continuous Reports of Sensed Hand Position During Sensorimotor Adaptation

View ORCID ProfileJonathan S. Tsay, View ORCID ProfileDarius E. Parvin, View ORCID ProfileRichard B. Ivry
doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.04.29.068197
Jonathan S. Tsay
1Department of Psychology, University of California, Berkeley
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
  • ORCID record for Jonathan S. Tsay
  • For correspondence: xiaotsay2015@berkeley.edu
Darius E. Parvin
1Department of Psychology, University of California, Berkeley
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
  • ORCID record for Darius E. Parvin
Richard B. Ivry
1Department of Psychology, University of California, Berkeley
2Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute, University of California, Berkeley
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
  • ORCID record for Richard B. Ivry
  • Abstract
  • Full Text
  • Info/History
  • Metrics
  • Preview PDF
Loading

ABSTRACT

Sensorimotor learning entails multiple learning processes, some volitional and explicit, and others automatic and implicit. A new method to isolate implicit adaptation involves the use of a “clamped” visual perturbation in which, during a reaching movement, visual feedback is limited to a cursor that follows an invariant trajectory, offset from the target by a fixed angle. Despite full awareness that the cursor movement is not contingent on their behavior, as well as explicit instructions to ignore the cursor, systematic changes in motor behavior are observed, and these changes have the signatures of implicit adaptation observed in studies using classic visuomotor perturbations. While it is clear that the response to clamped feedback occurs automatically, it remains unknown if the adjustments in behavior remain outside the participant’s awareness. To address this question, we used the clamp method and directly probed awareness by asking participants to report their hand position after each reach. As expected, we observed robust deviations in hand angle away from the target (average of ∼18°). The hand reports also showed systematic deviations over the course of adaptation, initially attracted towards the visual feedback and then in the opposite direction, paralleling the shift in hand position. However, these effects were subtle (∼2° at asymptote), with the hand reports dominated by a feedforward signal associated with the motor intent yet modulated in a limited way by feedback sources. These results confirm that adaptation in response to a visual perturbation is not only automatic, but also largely implicit.

NEWS AND NOTEWORTHY Sensorimotor adaptation operates in an obligatory manner. Qualitatively, subjective reports obtained after adaptation demonstrate that, in many conditions, participants are unaware of significant changes in behavior. In the present study, we quantified participants’ awareness of adaptation by obtaining reports of hand position on a trial-by-trial basis. The results confirm that participants are largely unaware of adaptation, but also reveal the subtle influence of feedback on their subjective experience.

Competing Interest Statement

The authors have declared no competing interest.

Copyright 
The copyright holder for this preprint is the author/funder, who has granted bioRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. It is made available under a CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 International license.
Back to top
PreviousNext
Posted April 30, 2020.
Download PDF
Email

Thank you for your interest in spreading the word about bioRxiv.

NOTE: Your email address is requested solely to identify you as the sender of this article.

Enter multiple addresses on separate lines or separate them with commas.
Continuous Reports of Sensed Hand Position During Sensorimotor Adaptation
(Your Name) has forwarded a page to you from bioRxiv
(Your Name) thought you would like to see this page from the bioRxiv website.
CAPTCHA
This question is for testing whether or not you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.
Share
Continuous Reports of Sensed Hand Position During Sensorimotor Adaptation
Jonathan S. Tsay, Darius E. Parvin, Richard B. Ivry
bioRxiv 2020.04.29.068197; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.04.29.068197
Digg logo Reddit logo Twitter logo CiteULike logo Facebook logo Google logo Mendeley logo
Citation Tools
Continuous Reports of Sensed Hand Position During Sensorimotor Adaptation
Jonathan S. Tsay, Darius E. Parvin, Richard B. Ivry
bioRxiv 2020.04.29.068197; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.04.29.068197

Citation Manager Formats

  • BibTeX
  • Bookends
  • EasyBib
  • EndNote (tagged)
  • EndNote 8 (xml)
  • Medlars
  • Mendeley
  • Papers
  • RefWorks Tagged
  • Ref Manager
  • RIS
  • Zotero
  • Tweet Widget
  • Facebook Like
  • Google Plus One

Subject Area

  • Neuroscience
Subject Areas
All Articles
  • Animal Behavior and Cognition (2518)
  • Biochemistry (4968)
  • Bioengineering (3473)
  • Bioinformatics (15185)
  • Biophysics (6886)
  • Cancer Biology (5380)
  • Cell Biology (7718)
  • Clinical Trials (138)
  • Developmental Biology (4521)
  • Ecology (7135)
  • Epidemiology (2059)
  • Evolutionary Biology (10211)
  • Genetics (7504)
  • Genomics (9774)
  • Immunology (4826)
  • Microbiology (13186)
  • Molecular Biology (5130)
  • Neuroscience (29368)
  • Paleontology (203)
  • Pathology (836)
  • Pharmacology and Toxicology (1461)
  • Physiology (2131)
  • Plant Biology (4738)
  • Scientific Communication and Education (1008)
  • Synthetic Biology (1337)
  • Systems Biology (4003)
  • Zoology (768)