| Outline of Final Research Achievements |
It is controversial whether the motor system utilizes kinematic plans (e.g. movement trajectory) to produce voluntary movements. We develop new force field learning tasks by arm reaching movements inducing large target errors (i.e. task failure) and isolate a learning process of kinematic plan driven by failure. We found that in the presence of target errors, the reaching trajectory did not show a monotonic change observed in the absence of target errors but a non-monotonic change ensuring a rapid reduction in the target error and that the appearance of target errors in the de-adaptation period caused a new steady-state trajectory, distinct from the baseline trajectory, despite the same no-force field environment. The established internal model learning process can explain our observations by including a hierarchical interaction with a kinematic plan learning process modulated by the task failure, thus showing a behavioral evidence for the kinematic plan utilized by the motor system.
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