Alternating Adaptation of Eye and Hand Movements to Opposite Directed Double Steps
- Resource Type
- Authors
- Gerd Schmitz; Valentina Grigorova
- Source
- Journal of motor behavior. 49(3)
- Subject
- Adult
Male
genetic structures
Eye Movements
Cognitive Neuroscience
Biophysics
Experimental and Cognitive Psychology
Adaptation (eye)
Motor Activity
050105 experimental psychology
Hand movements
03 medical and health sciences
Young Adult
0302 clinical medicine
Motor system
Humans
0501 psychology and cognitive sciences
Orthopedics and Sports Medicine
Clockwise
Communication
business.industry
Movement (music)
05 social sciences
Eye movement
Efference copy
Hand
Adaptation, Physiological
Female
Psychology
business
Neuroscience
030217 neurology & neurosurgery
Psychomotor Performance
- Language
- ISSN
- 1940-1027
Eye and hand movements can adapt to a variety of sensorimotor discordances. Studies on adaptation of movement directions suggest that the oculomotor and the hand motor system access the same adaptive mechanism related to the polarity of a discordance, because concurrent adaptations to opposite directed discordances strongly interfere. The authors scrutinized whether participants adapt their hand and eye movements to opposite directions (clockwise/counterclockwise) when both motor systems are alternatingly exposed to opposite directed double steps, and whether such adaptation is influenced by the allocation of effector to adaptation direction. The results showed that hand and eye movements adapted to opposite directions, but adaptation was biased to the counterclockwise direction. Aftereffects emerged nearly unbiased and independently for both motor systems. The authors conclude that the oculomotor and the hand motor system use independent mechanisms when they adapt to opposite polarities, although they interact during adaptation or concurrent performance.