Cancelling Prism Adaptation by a Shift of Background: A Novel Utility of Allocentric Coordinates for Extracting Motor Errors

Abstract

Many previous studies have reported that our brains are able to encode a target position not only in body-centered coordinates but also in terms of landmarks in the background. The importance of such allocentric memory increases when we are forced to complete a delayed reaching task after the target has disappeared. However, the merit of allocentric memory in natural situations in which we are free to make an immediate reach toward a target has remained elusive. We hypothesized that allocentric memory is essential even in an immediate reach for dissociating between error attributable to the motor system and error attributable to target motion. We show here in humans that prism adaptation, that is, adaptation of reaching movements in response to errors attributable to displacement of the visual field, can be cancelled or enhanced simply by moving the background in mid-flight of the reaching movement. The results provide direct evidence for the novel contribution of allocentric memory in providing information on “where I intended to go,” thereby discriminating the effect of target motion from the error resulting from the issued motor control signals.