Savings upon re-aiming in visuomotor adaptation

Abstract

Sensorimotor adaptation has traditionally been viewed as a purely error-based process. There is, however, growing appreciation for the idea that performance changes in these tasks can arise from the interplay of error-based adaptation with other learning processes. The challenge is to specify constraints on these different processes, elucidating their respective contributions to performance, as well as the manner in which they interact. We address this question by exploring constraints on savings, the phenomenon in which people show faster performance gains when the same learning task is repeated. In a series of five experiments, we demonstrate that error-based learning associated with sensorimotor adaptation does not contribute to savings. Instead, savings reflects improvements in action selection, rather than motor execution.