An implicit memory of errors limits human sensorimotor adaptation

Abstract

After extended practice, motor adaptation reaches a limit in which learning appears to stop, despite the fact that residual errors persist. What prevents the brain from eliminating the residual errors? Here we found that the adaptation limit was causally dependent on the second order statistics of the perturbation; when variance was high, learning was impaired and large residual errors persisted. However, when learning relied solely on explicit strategy, both the adaptation limit and its dependence on perturbation variability disappeared. In contrast, when learning depended entirely, or in part on implicit learning, residual errors developed. Residual errors in implicit performance were caused by variance-dependent modifications to error sensitivity, not forgetting. These observations are consisted with a model of learning in which the implicit system becomes more sensitive to error when errors are consistent, but forgets this memory of errors over time. Thus, residual errors in motor adaptation are a signature of the implicit learning system, caused by an error sensitivity that depends on the history of past errors.