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Motor memories of object dynamics are categorically organized

View ORCID ProfileEvan Cesanek, Zhaoran Zhang, James N. Ingram, View ORCID ProfileDaniel M. Wolpert, J. Randall Flanagan
doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.07.13.452183
Evan Cesanek
1Mortimer B. Zuckerman Mind Brain Behavior Institute, Columbia University, New York, NY, 10027, USA
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  • For correspondence: evan.cesanek@gmail.com
Zhaoran Zhang
1Mortimer B. Zuckerman Mind Brain Behavior Institute, Columbia University, New York, NY, 10027, USA
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James N. Ingram
1Mortimer B. Zuckerman Mind Brain Behavior Institute, Columbia University, New York, NY, 10027, USA
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Daniel M. Wolpert
1Mortimer B. Zuckerman Mind Brain Behavior Institute, Columbia University, New York, NY, 10027, USA
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J. Randall Flanagan
2Department of Psychology and Centre for Neuroscience Studies, Queen’s University, Kingston, ON, K7L 3N6, Canada
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Abstract

The ability to predict the dynamics of objects, linking applied force to motion, underlies our capacity to perform many of the tasks we carry out on a daily basis. Thus, a fundamental question is how the dynamics of the myriad objects we interact with are organized in memory. Using a custom-built three-dimensional robotic interface that allowed us to simulate objects of varying appearance and weight, we examined how participants learned the weights of sets of objects that they repeatedly lifted. We find strong support for the novel hypothesis that motor memories of object dynamics are organized categorically, in terms of families, based on covariation in their visual and mechanical properties. A striking prediction of this hypothesis, supported by our findings and not predicted by standard associative map models, is that outlier objects with weights that deviate from the family-predicted weight will never be learned despite causing repeated lifting errors.

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 4.0 International license.
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Posted July 14, 2021.
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Motor memories of object dynamics are categorically organized
Evan Cesanek, Zhaoran Zhang, James N. Ingram, Daniel M. Wolpert, J. Randall Flanagan
bioRxiv 2021.07.13.452183; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.07.13.452183
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Motor memories of object dynamics are categorically organized
Evan Cesanek, Zhaoran Zhang, James N. Ingram, Daniel M. Wolpert, J. Randall Flanagan
bioRxiv 2021.07.13.452183; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.07.13.452183

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