Intermanual transfer of visuomotor learning is facilitated by a cognitive strategy

Abstract

Humans continuously adapt their movement to a novel environment by recalibrating their sensorimotor system. Recent evidence, however, shows that explicit planning to compensate for external changes, i.e. a cognitive strategy, can also aid performance. If such a strategy is indeed planned in external space, it should improve performance in an effector independent manner. We tested this hypothesis by examining whether promoting a cognitive strategy during a visual-force adaptation task performed in one hand can facilitate learning for the opposite hand. Participants rapidly adjusted the height of visual bar on screen to a target level by isometrically exerting force on a handle using their right hand. Visuomotor gain increased during the task and participants learned the increased gain. Visual feedback was continuously provided for one group, while for another group only the endpoint of the force trajectory was presented. The latter has been reported to promote cognitive strategy use. We found that endpoint feedback produced stronger intermanual transfer of learning and slower response times than continuous feedback. In a separate experiment, we confirmed that the aftereffect is indeed reduced when only endpoint feedback is provided, a finding that has been consistently observed when cognitive strategies are used. The results suggest that intermanual transfer can be facilitated by a cognitive strategy. This indicates that the behavioral observation of intermanual transfer can be achieved either by forming an effector-independent motor representation, or by sharing an effector-independent cognitive strategy between the hands. New and noteworthyThe causes and consequences of cognitive strategy use for motor learning are poorly understood. We tested whether a visuomotor task learned using a strategy generalizes across effectors. Visual feedback was manipulated to enhance the use of a cognitive strategy. Learning using a cognitive strategy for one hand transferred to the task performed by the un-learned hand. Our result suggests that intermanual transfer can also result from a common cognitive strategy used to control both hands.