SENSORY INTEGRATION IN THE LEARNING OF AN AIMING TASK

Results of recent research on motor control indicate that in an aiming task, visual information remains of primary importance for optimal ac curacy even after extended practice. One of the points that is yet unc lear is whether it is solely the dynamic visual information about the moving limb that is important for movement control. To shed some light on this issue, subjects practiced an oscilloscope aiming task. In a t ransfer test, the dynamic information regarding the displacement of th e to-be-moved object could be withdrawn without altering the static vi sual information that had been available during the learning of the ta sk. The results indicated that, after 200 trials of practice, withdraw ing dynamic visual information regarding the displacement of the to-be -moved object produced a deterioration in the accuracy of the subjects ' responses. This indicates that the role played by the dynamic visual information for aiming control does not diminish with practice. Moreo ver, although visual cues available before or after movement execution have been shown to help better plan an upcoming movement, the static cues available during movement execution do not appear to play an impo rtant role in the movement representation thought to develop through p ractice.