Impaired visuomotor generalization by inconsistent attentional contexts

Abstract

In daily life, people are constantly presented with situations in which they have to learn and acquire new motor skills in complex environments, where attention is often distracted by other events. Being able to generalize and perform the acquired motor action in different environments is a crucial part of visuomotor learning. The current study examined whether attentional distraction impairs generalization of visuomotor adaptation or whether consistent distraction can operate as an internal cue to facilitate generalization. Using a dual-task paradigm combining visuomotor rotational adaptation and an attention-demanding secondary task, we showed that switching the attentional context from training (dual-task) to generalization (single-task) reduced the range of transfer of visuomotor adaptation to untrained directions. However, when consistent distraction was present throughout training and generalization, visuomotor generalization was equivalent to without distractions at all. Furthermore, this attentional context-dependent generalization was evident even when sensory modality of distractions differed between training and generalization. Therefore, the general nature of the dual tasks, rather than the specific stimuli, is associated with visuomotor memory and serves as a critical cue for generalization. Taken together, we demonstrated that attention plays a critical role during sensorimotor adaptation in selecting and associating multisensory signals with motor memory. This finding provides insight into developing learning programs that are generalizable in complex daily environments.NEW & NOTEWORTHY Learning novel motor actions in complex environments with attentional distraction is a critical function. Successful motor learning involves the ability to transfer the acquired skill from the trained to novel environments. Here, we demonstrate attentional distraction does not impair visuomotor adaptation. Rather, consistency in the attentional context from training to generalization modulates the degree of transfer to untrained locations. The role of attention and memory must, therefore, be incorporated into existing models of visuomotor learning.

Keywords: motor control; motor learning; visual attention.

Fig. 1.

Task schematics. A: reaching task: The solid circle indicates a reach target location, and the open circle indicates the starting position. Reach targets appeared one at a time and remained visible for the entire trial (1,500 ms). In no-rotation trials, the cursor (dotted line) followed stylus motion (solid line) normally, whereas in rotation trials, the cursor direction was rotated by 45°CCW or CW from the reach trajectory. B: secondary rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) task: Five upright or inverted Ts of various colors were each presented sequentially for 150 ms, with 150-ms gaps between stimuli (total of 1,500 ms). Participants had to report at the end of each trial how many relevant targets (1, 2, or 3) were presented in that trial. Targets were defined as inverted green and upright red Ts. C: secondary sound discrimination task. Five tones at three different frequencies (200 Hz, 300 Hz, and 450 Hz) appeared again with the same timing as the RSVP task. Participants had to report the total number of high- and low-frequency tones. D: experimental phases. The solid circles indicate locations of seven reach targets. Reach targets appeared one at a time. Participants performed four consecutive experimental phases. In the familiarization phase (no-rotation), participants made reaching movements to seven target directions with cursor feedback. The baseline phase (no-rotation) is the same as the familiarization phase, except cursor feedback was only visible to the trained direction. In the training phase (rotation), participants reached only toward the trained direction with rotated cursor feedback. In the generalization phase (rotation), participants reached toward seven target directions. Cursor feedback was provided only for the trained direction.

Fig. 2.

Mean performance during the training and generalization phases for the none-none (blue), RSVP-none (orange), RSVP-RSVP (green), and RSVP-sound groups (purple). Each trial block represents the mean performance from every two trials in the training phase and seven trials in the generalization phase. A: reach error during the training phase. We measured reach error by calculating the angle between the line that joined the starting base to the target with the line that joined the position of the cursor at movement onset to the position of the cursor at peak velocity. B: reaction time (RT) during training (left) and generalization (right). RT was defined as the time elapsed from target appearance to movement onset. C: movement time (MT) during training (left) and generalization (right). MT was defined as the time elapsed between movement onset and movement. Error bars represent means ± SE.

Fig. 3.

Adaptation index of the generalization and Gaussian fits for the none-none (blue), RSVP-none (orange), RSVP-RSVP (green), and RSVP-sound groups (purple). The markers represent the mean adaptation index at each target direction. The solid lines represent the mean predictions of the best fitting Gaussian function for each participant. The error bars represent means ± SE.