Citation

Howard IS, Wolpert DM, Franklin DW. Curr. Biol. 2015; 25(3): 397-401.

Affiliation

Computational and Biological Learning Lab, Department of Engineering, University of Cambridge, Trumpington Street, Cambridge CB2 1PZ, UK. Electronic address: dwf25@cam.ac.uk.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2015, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1016/j.cub.2014.12.037

PMID

25578907

Abstract

In ball sports, we are taught to follow through, despite the inability of events after contact or release to influence the outcome [1, 2]. Here we show that the specific motor memory active at any given moment critically depends on the movement that will be made in the near future. We demonstrate that associating a different follow-through movement with two motor skills that normally interfere [3-7] allows them to be learned simultaneously, suggesting that distinct future actions activate separate motor memories. This implies that when learning a skill, a variable follow-through would activate multiple motor memories across practice, whereas a consistent follow-through would activate a single motor memory, resulting in faster learning. We confirm this prediction and show that such follow-through effects influence adaptation over time periods associated with real-world skill learning. Overall, our results indicate that movements made in the immediate future influence the current active motor memory. This suggests that there is a critical time period both before [8] and after the current movement that determines motor memory activation and controls learning.

Language: en