Adaptive control: a review of the ability to acquire and maintain high sensorimotor performance

When the relationship which relates us to the environment through vision, often named visual mapping, is durably modified, our behaviour is altered at sensory, motor and cognitive levels. The brain has the ability through the so-called adaptive control to progressively decrease the motor errors despite visual image alteration. Adaptive control in both the visuo-manual and the vestibulo-ocular systems is reviewed. A parallel is tentatively made between adaptation to ordinary optical alterations (resulting from the use of refraction-corrective glasses) in the visual mapping of these two systems and the adaptation to more complex visuo-motor relationships experienced by people working in virtual environments.