Visuomotor adaptation enhances representational acuity without altering spatial bias

Prism adaptation is a well-established paradigm for studying sensorimotor plasticity, known to produce not only motor after-effects but also changes in spatial cognition. Whether visuomotor rotation-a similar form of sensorimotor adaptation-elicits comparable cognitive transfer remains unclear.

Participants performed visuomotor rotation tasks involving either leftward or rightward 15° rotations. The perturbation was introduced either abruptly (within one trial) or gradually (over 34 trials). To assess potential cognitive transfer, participants completed a perceptual line bisection task before and after adaptation.

No condition (leftward/rightward or abrupt/gradual) induced measurable cognitive after-effects in line bisection performance, indicating an absence of transfer from sensorimotor to spatial-cognitive domains. However, a novel finding emerged: visuomotor rotation enhanced participants' representational acuity, reflected in improved sensitivity when judging the midpoint of a line. This effect was most pronounced following gradual perturbations and persisted beyond the adaptation phase.

These findings demonstrate a clear dissociation between the cognitive and perceptual consequences of visuomotor adaptation. Visuomotor rotation thus provides a reliable means to study sensorimotor plasticity without altering spatial representation-a methodological advantage for investigating populations with atypical spatial biases. The enhancement of representational acuity further suggests that sensorimotor learning can refine spatial discrimination independently of cognitive recalibration.