Contributions of vision and proprioception to arm movement planning in the vertical plane

The roles of visual and somatosensory information in arm movement planning remain enigmatic. Previous studies have examined these roles by dissociating visual and somatosensory cues about limb position prior to movement onset and examining the resulting effects on movements performed in the horizontal plane. Here we examined the effects of misaligned limb position cues prior to movement onset as reaches were planned and executed along different directions in the vertical plane. Movements were planned with somatosensory and visual feedback aligned at the starting position of the reach or with visual feedback displaced horizontally (Experiment 1) or vertically (Experiment 2). As in the horizontal plane, changes in movement directions induced by misaligned feedback indicated that vision and proprioception were both generally taken into account when planning vertical plane movements. However, we also found evidence that the contributions of vision and proprioception differed across target directions and between directions of displaced visual feedback. These findings suggest that the contributions of vision and proprioception to movement planning in the vertical plane reflect the unique multisensory and biomechanical demands associated with moving against gravity.