Prism adaptation differently affects motor-intentional and perceptual-attentional biases in healthy individuals

Prism adaptation (PA) has been shown to affect performance on a variety of spatial tasks in healthy individuals and neglect patients. However, little is still known about the mechanisms through which PA affects spatial cognition. In the present study we tested the effect of PA on the perceptual-attentional "where" and motor-intentional "aiming" spatial systems in healthy individuals. Eighty-four participants performed a line bisection task presented on a computer screen under normal or right-left reversed viewing conditions, which allows for the fractionation of "where" and "aiming" bias components (Schwartz et al., 1997). The task was performed before and after a short period of visuomotor adaptation either to left- or right-shifting prisms, or control goggles fitted with plain glass lenses. Participants demonstrated initial leftward "where" and "aiming" biases, consistent with previous research. Adaptation to left-shifting prisms reduced the leftward motor-intentional "aiming" bias. By contrast, the "aiming" bias was unaffected by adaptation to the right-shifting prisms or control goggles. The leftward "where" bias was also reduced, but this reduction was independent of the direction of the prismatic shift. These results mirror recent findings in neglect patients, who showed a selective amelioration of right motor-intentional "aiming" bias after right prism exposure (Fortis et al., 2009; C.L. Striemer & J. Danckert, 2010). Thus, these findings indicate that prism adaptation primarily affects the motor-intentional "aiming" system in both healthy individuals and neglect patients, and further suggest that improvement in neglect patients after PA may be related to changes in the aiming spatial system.