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"Leap before you look": Conditions that suppress explicit, knowledge-based learning during visuomotor adaptation.
Tejas Savalia1, Rosemary A Cowell2, David E Huber3
1Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, University of Massachusetts Amherst.
Summary
Knowledge-based learning can be suppressed during visuomotor adaptation by gradually introducing the novel mapping, especially when participants move quickly. Continuous motion feedback is crucial for knowledge-based learning to occur.
Area of Science:
- Cognitive Psychology
- Motor Learning
- Neuroscience
Background:
- Visuomotor learning involves both explicit knowledge-based and implicit procedural components.
- Procedural learning often dominates with practice, occurring automatically.
- Knowledge-based learning can be suppressed under specific conditions, such as gradual mapping introduction and fast movements.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the conditions (task instructions, perturbation parameters, feedback) that suppress or encourage knowledge-based visuomotor learning.
- To determine the role of movement speed and perturbation introduction in suppressing explicit learning.
- To examine the necessity of continuous motion feedback for knowledge-based learning.
Main Methods:
- A reaching task with varying degrees of visuomotor rotation (30° to 90°).
- Manipulation of perturbation introduction (gradual vs. abrupt).
- Varying task instructions (speed vs. accuracy focus) and motion feedback (continuous vs. absent).
- Analysis using dual-state learning models.
Main Results:
- Knowledge-based learning was suppressed even with a 90° rotation if introduced gradually and movement was fast.
- Abrupt perturbation introduction or accuracy-focused instructions led to knowledge-based learning.
- Knowledge-based learning did not occur without continuous motion feedback, confirmed by learning dynamics and model comparison.
- The knowledge-based component represented explicit aiming, while procedural learning was slow to decay.
Conclusions:
- Gradual introduction of visuomotor perturbations and instructions emphasizing speed are key to suppressing explicit knowledge-based learning.
- Continuous motion feedback is essential for the engagement and expression of knowledge-based visuomotor learning.
- Visuomotor adaptation involves distinct, interacting learning systems whose engagement depends on task parameters and feedback conditions.
