Context-dependent anticipation of different task dynamics: rapid recall of appropriate motor skills using visual cues

Recent studies have reported that human subjects show varying degrees of ability to use contextual cues to recall the motor skills required to compensate for different dynamic external force fields during arm movements. In particular, the subjects showed little or no ability to use color cues to adjust motor outputs in anticipation of the perturbing fields after limited periods of training that were sufficient to learn to compensate for the fields themselves. This is unexpected since humans and monkeys can use color cues to perform a wide range of visuomotor tasks. Here we show that a monkey with extensive practice compensating for viscous fields in an elbow-movement task can use associated color cues to adjust motor output in anticipation of an impending field before physically encountering it.