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Previous motor actions outweigh sensory information in sensorimotor learning

View ORCID ProfileBarbara Feulner, Danilo Postin, View ORCID ProfileCaspar M. Schwiedrzik, Arezoo Pooresmaeili
doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.12.18.423405
Barbara Feulner
1Perception and Cognition Lab, European Neuroscience Institute Göttingen- A Joint Initiative of the University Medical Center Göttingen and the Max-Planck-Society, Grisebachstrasse 5, 37077 Göttingen, Germany
2Bioengineering Department, Imperial College London, Exhibition Rd, South Kensington, London SW7 2BU, United Kingdom
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  • For correspondence: b.feulner18@imperial.ac.uk a.pooresmaeili@eni-g.de
Danilo Postin
1Perception and Cognition Lab, European Neuroscience Institute Göttingen- A Joint Initiative of the University Medical Center Göttingen and the Max-Planck-Society, Grisebachstrasse 5, 37077 Göttingen, Germany
3Department of Psychiatry, School of Medicine & Health Sciences, Carl von Ossietzky University of Oldenburg, Hermann-Ehlers-Str. 7, 26160 Bad Zwischenahn, Germany
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Caspar M. Schwiedrzik
4Neural Circuits and Cognition Lab, European Neuroscience Institute Göttingen- A Joint Initiative of the University Medical Center Göttingen and the Max-Planck-Society, Grisebachstrasse 5, 37077 Göttingen, Germany
5Perception and Plasticity Group, German Primate Center – Leibniz Institute for Primate Research, Kellnerweg 4, 37077 Göttingen, Germany
6Leibniz ScienceCampus Primate Cognition, Göttingen, Germany
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Arezoo Pooresmaeili
1Perception and Cognition Lab, European Neuroscience Institute Göttingen- A Joint Initiative of the University Medical Center Göttingen and the Max-Planck-Society, Grisebachstrasse 5, 37077 Göttingen, Germany
6Leibniz ScienceCampus Primate Cognition, Göttingen, Germany
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  • For correspondence: b.feulner18@imperial.ac.uk a.pooresmaeili@eni-g.de
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Abstract

Humans can use their previous experience in form of statistical priors to improve decisions. It is however unclear how such priors are learned and represented. Importantly, it has remained elusive whether prior learning is independent of the sensorimotor system involved in the learning process or not, as both modality-specific and modality-general learning have been reported in the past. Here, we used a saccadic eye movement task to probe the learning and representation of a spatial prior across a few trials. In this task, learning occurs in an unsupervised manner and through encountering trial-by-trial visual hints drawn from a distribution centered on the target location. Using a model-comparison approach, we found that participants’ prior knowledge is largely represented in the form of their previous motor actions, with minimal influence from the previously seen visual hints. By using two different motor contexts for response (looking either at the estimated target location, or exactly opposite to it), we could further compare whether prior experience obtained in one motor context can be transferred to the other. Although learning curves were highly similar, and participants seemed to use the same strategy for both response types, they could not transfer their knowledge between contexts, as performance and confidence ratings dropped to naïve levels after a switch of the required response. Together, our results suggest that humans preferably use the internal representations of their previous motor actions, rather than past incoming sensory information, to form statistical sensorimotor priors on the timescale of a few trials.

Competing Interest Statement

The authors have declared no competing interest.

Footnotes

  • Conflict of interests: The authors declare no competing interests.

Copyright 
The copyright holder for this preprint is the author/funder, who has granted bioRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. All rights reserved. No reuse allowed without permission.
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Posted December 20, 2020.
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Previous motor actions outweigh sensory information in sensorimotor learning
Barbara Feulner, Danilo Postin, Caspar M. Schwiedrzik, Arezoo Pooresmaeili
bioRxiv 2020.12.18.423405; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.12.18.423405
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Previous motor actions outweigh sensory information in sensorimotor learning
Barbara Feulner, Danilo Postin, Caspar M. Schwiedrzik, Arezoo Pooresmaeili
bioRxiv 2020.12.18.423405; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.12.18.423405

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