Effects of visuomotor delays on the control of movement and on perceptual localization in the presence and absence of visual targets

Abstract

The sensory system constantly deals with delayed feedback. Recent studies showed that playing a virtual game of pong with delayed feedback caused hypermetric reaching movements. We investigated whether this effect is associated with a perceptual bias. In addition, we examined the importance of the target in causing hypermetric movements. In a first experiment, participants played a delayed pong game and blindly reached to presented targets. Following each reaching movement, they assessed the position of the invisible cursor. We found that participants performed hypermetric movements but reported that the invisible cursor reached the target, suggesting that they were unaware of the hypermetria and that their perception was biased toward the target rather than toward their hand position. In a second experiment, we removed the visual target, and strikingly, the hypermetria vanished. Moreover, participants reported that the invisible cursor was located with their hand. Taking these results together, we conclude that the adaptation to the visuomotor delay during the pong game selectively affected the execution of goal directed movements, resulting in hypermetria and perceptual bias when movements are directed toward visual targets but not when such targets are absent. NEW & NOTEWORTHY Recent studies showed that adaptation to visuomotor delays causes hypermetric movements in the absence of visual feedback, suggesting that visuomotor delay is represented using current state information. We report that this adaptation also affects perception. Importantly, both the motor and perceptual effects are selective to the representations that are used in the execution of goal-directed movements toward visual targets.