Attention as a proxy for motor intention: exploiting the attention-action coupling to study strategic processes in visuomotor learning

• Applicant: Luca Wollenberg, Ph.D.
• Subject Area: General, Cognitive and Mathematical Psychology
• Term: since 2022
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 515559685

Visuomotor learning is essential for the acquisition of new motor skills and flexible motor control under altered conditions. This type of learning is thought to arise from an interplay of automatic (implicit) and strategic (explicit) processes. Yet, the assessment of strategic processes (i.e. concealed, spatially specific motor intentions), which are frequently studied in the context of the so-called visuomotor rotation paradigm, poses a methodological challenge. Corresponding learning effects are typically measured via introspective methods. The envisaged research project therefore aims at examining the dynamics of strategic control processes and their interaction with automatic, implicit adaptation mechanisms based on objective measures. More specifically, the premotor shift of attention phenomenon – a well-established measure of motor target selection – shall be utilized to capture strategic aspects of reach movement planning in visuomotor learning. To this end, a visual discrimination task will be paired with variants of the visuomotor rotation paradigm in a series of experiments. In the first project part, the relationship between strategic learning effects and the spatio-temporal dynamics of premotor shifts of attention will be examined in detail. This part will also comprise an investigation of the mapping between attentional and introspective measures of learning strategies. The second part will look into the functional role of premotor attention shifts in visuomotor learning by means of experimental manipulations affecting the spatial probability of the relevant attentional probe stimulus. The third part will explore how attentional resources are allocated in case of a spatial decoupling of eye and hand movement targets during visuomotor leaning, with the goal of resolving whether or not premotor attentional mechanisms operate in an effector-specific fashion. Finally, the last part will examine, based on an assessment of premotor shifts of attention, whether force field learning involves strategic components similar to visuomotor rotation learning.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants