Abstract
Previously (Wijeyaratnam & Cressman, 2023 [JEMS]), we reported that focussing one’s attention on the hand’s trajectory (internal focus) or on the cursor’s trajectory (external focus) influenced visuomotor adaptation. Here, we asked if the act of focusing one’s attention on a neutral cue influences visuomotor adaptation. Participants were divided into 2 groups: Control (n=33) and Handle (n = 24). The Control group was not provided with attentional focus instruction, while the Handle group was instructed to focus on the trajectory of the handle during their reach. The instruction provided to the Handle group were considered neutral as they did not provide sensory information on the trajectory of the hand or cursor. Participants trained to reach with a 40° clockwise cursor rotation (160 trials). Explicit and implicit adaptation were assessed in the absence of cursor feedback (24 trials) when instructed to engage or withhold from engaging any reaching strategy developed, respectively. Analyses of angular errors at peak velocity revealed that the Handle group (HDL=35.7°) adapted their reaches to a similar extent as the Control group (CTL=36.1°) by the end of training. The Handle group also exhibited similar explicit (HDL=19.2°; CTL=19.1°) and implicit (HDL=11.7°; CTL=12.6°) adaptation to the CTL group. Thus, a neutral focus of attention results in similar visuomotor adaptation as reaching with no attentional focus instruction. These findings suggest that the location of attentional focus (external or internal) is a critical factor influencing visuomotor adaptation, which is distinct from the act of focusing one’s attention.
