No Evidence for Accurate Visuomotor Memory: Systematic and Variable Error in Memory-Guided Reaching

The authors explored whether the motor system has access to highly accurate information about the aiming environment after visual occlusion. Participants (N = 14) reached to 1 of 3 midsagittal targets in 4 visual conditions (open-loop, brief-delay, 500-ms delay, and 2,000-ms delay). In all condition...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of motor behavior 2003-06, Vol.35 (2), p.127-133
Main Authors: Westwood, David A., Heath, Matthew, Roy, Eric A.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Acoustic Stimulation
action
Activity levels. Psychomotricity
Biological and medical sciences
Cues
delay
Environment
Female
Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology
Humans
Male
memory
Memory - physiology
Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry
Psychology. Psychophysiology
Psychomotor activities
Psychomotor Performance - physiology
reaching
Time Factors
Vision
Visual Perception - physiology
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Summary:The authors explored whether the motor system has access to highly accurate information about the aiming environment after visual occlusion. Participants (N = 14) reached to 1 of 3 midsagittal targets in 4 visual conditions (open-loop, brief-delay, 500-ms delay, and 2,000-ms delay). In all conditions, the aiming environment was first viewed for 2,000 ms. Movements were cued immediately after the initial viewing period in the open-loop and brief-delay conditions. Vision was not occluded until movement onset in the open-loop condition, whereas vision was occluded coincidentally with the movement cue in the brief-delay condition. In the 2 longer delay conditions, the movement was cued following a 500- or a 2,000-ms no-vision delay period. Participants overshot the target in the open-loop condition, but that tendency was significantly reduced in the 3 delay conditions. Moreover, end-point variability was greater in the 3 delay conditions than in the open-loop condition. A speed-accuracy tradeoff account could not explain the differences between open-loop and delayed reaching. Those findings suggest that the motor system does not have access to highly accurate information about the aiming environment for any appreciable period of time following visual occlusion, consistent with the view that the visuomotor system operates in real time.
ISSN:0022-2895
1940-1027
DOI:10.1080/00222890309602128