PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - James Mathew
AU  - Pierre-Michel Bernier
AU  - Frederic R. Danion
TI  - Asymmetrical relationship between prediction and control during visuomotor adaptation
AID  - 10.1523/ENEURO.0280-18.2018
DP  - 2018 Nov 20
TA  - eneuro
PG  - ENEURO.0280-18.2018
4099  - http://www.eneuro.org/content/early/2018/11/20/ENEURO.0280-18.2018.short
4100  - http://www.eneuro.org/content/early/2018/11/20/ENEURO.0280-18.2018.full
AB  - Current theories suggest that the ability to control the body and to predict its associated sensory consequences is key for skilled motor behavior. It is also suggested that these abilities need both be updated when the mapping between motor commands and sensory consequences is altered. Here we challenge this view by investigating the transfer of adaptation to rotated visual feedback between one task in which human participants had to control a cursor with their hand in order to track a moving target, and another in which they had to predict with their eyes the visual consequences of their hand movement on the cursor. Hand and eye tracking performances were evaluated respectively through cursor-target and gaze-cursor distance. Results reveal a striking dissociation: although prior adaptation of hand tracking greatly facilitates eye tracking, adaptation of eye tracking does not transfer to hand tracking. We conclude that although the update of control is associated with the update of prediction, prediction can be updated independently of control. To account for this pattern of results we propose that task demands mediate the update of prediction and control. Although a joint update of prediction and control seemed mandatory for success in our hand tracking task, the update of control was only facultative for success in our eye tracking task. More generally those results promote the view that prediction and control are mediated by separate neural processes and suggest that people can learn to predict movement consequences without necessarily promoting their ability to control these movements.Significance Statement Current theories suggest that accurately predicting the sensory consequences of one’s actions is central for perception, awareness of action, and motor learning. In the latter case, it is assumed that prediction errors are used to train the controller that transforms our desired sensory consequences into motor commands. Here we show that, following exposure to biased hand visual feedback, people can update their ability to predict visual consequences of hand movements without necessarily improving their ability to control these movements. This work challenges the view that the joint update of prediction and control is mandatory when facing a change in the mapping between motor commands and sensory consequences. Instead we propose that task demands mediate the update of prediction and control.