PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Guy Rens
AU  - Marco Davare
TI  - The observation of explicit and implicit visuomotor cues can drive predictive motor control
AID  - 10.1101/664854
DP  - 2019 Jan 01
TA  - bioRxiv
PG  - 664854
4099  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2019/06/10/664854.short
4100  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2019/06/10/664854.full
AB  - Recent studies have highlighted that the observation of hand-object interactions can influence perceptual weight judgements made by an observer. Moreover, observing explicit motor errors during object lifting allows individuals to update their internal sensorimotor representation about object weight. Embodying observed visuomotor cues for the planning of a motor command further enables individuals to accurately scale their fingertip forces when subsequently lifting the same object. However, it is still unknown whether observation of a skilled lift is equally able to mediate predictive motor control in the observer. Here, we tested this hypothesis by asking participants to grasp and lift a manipulandum after observing an actor’s lift. The object weight changed unpredictably (light or heavy) every third to sixth trial performed by the actor. Participants were informed that they would always lift the same weight as the actor and that, based on the experimental condition, they would have to observe skilled or erroneously performed lifts. Our results revealed that the observation of both skilled and erroneously performed lifts allows participants to update their internal sensorimotor object representation, in turn enabling them to predict force scaling accurately. These findings suggest that the observation of explicit as well as implicit visuomotor cues are embodied in the observer’s motor repertoire and can drive changes in predictive motor control.