Adaptation to rotated visual feedback: a re-examination of motor interference

We have tested human visuo-motor adaptation in rotated-feedback tasks in which subjects first learn to move a cursor to visual targets with a rotational perturbation between joystick and cursor, and are then challenged with the opposing rotation. We then retest the subjects in the original adaptation task, to measure retention of a short-term memory of its earlier learning. Others have used similar tasks and report retrograde interference between one task and the short-term motor memory of the preceding task, such that later performance is impaired. However, we show that in the short-term conditions tested here, these effects can be considered as anterograde interference effects between the two tasks and we find no evidence of retrograde interference.