Prospective Control in a De-Novo Perception-Action Learning Task

Learning a novel interceptive action involves picking up useful perceptual information for prospective control and learning to organize the degrees of freedom (DoF) within the movement system into novel coordinative structures. Existing literature has shown that interceptive actions are guided by perceptual information that continuously specifies the movement of the ongoing action. However, the use of prospective control at task level and the formation of a novel coordinative structure at DoF level has not been jointly evaluated in previous research. Using a virtual lateral interception task incorporating a body-machine interface with a novel redundant mapping, prospective control was examined through differences in end effector trajectories and the presence of a coordinative structure using the uncontrolled manifold analysis during Intercepted and Unintercepted trials. Prospective control reflected in Angle of Approach and movement initiation effects were present in Intercepted trials, whereas Unintercepted trials only showed movement initiation effects. Compensatory covariation in joint angles was higher than variability affecting task performance in both Intercepted and Unintercepted trials. These findings suggest the use of prospective control and formation of a stable coordinative structure in Intercepted trials, while signs of prospective control were also present during search for a new coordinative structure in Unintercepted trials.