Development of the third component in prism adaptation: effects of active and passive movement

Adaptation to prismatically displaced vision was assessed using a factorial design involving active or passive exposure movement, active or passive test movement, and target location. Tests of visual shift, ipsilateral and contralateral proprioceptive shift, and ipsilateral and contralateral target-pointing shift were made at the completion of 6, 12, 24, 48, and 96 exposure trials. During the early stages of adaptation (< 48 exposure trials), changes in ipsilateral target pointing were completely accounted for by the sum of the visual and ipsilateral proprioceptive changes. Following longer exposure durations, evidence of a third component was obtained, but only when exposure and test movements were the same (i.e., active-active and passive-passive conditions). The acquisition of such movement-specific response tendencies was interpreted as indicating that the third component represents a change in a central program or schema, which is responsible for guiding a limb to an externally specified location. Target location had no effect on the presence or magnitude of the third component, and there was no indication that the third component transferred intermanually.