Journal Article

The dissociable effects of punishment and reward on motor learning

Diedrichsen, Jörn, Mallia, Elizabeth, Rothwell, John, Galea, Joseph M

2015

Overview

Human motor adaptation is often described as an automatic process insensitive to reward- or punishment-based feedback. Contrary to this hypothesis, Galea et al . show through a double dissociation that negative and positive feedback have independent effects on the learning and retention components of motor adaptation, respectively. These results promise to have significant implications for the understanding and optimization of motor adaptation. A common assumption regarding error-based motor learning (motor adaptation) in humans is that its underlying mechanism is automatic and insensitive to reward- or punishment-based feedback. Contrary to this hypothesis, we show in a double dissociation that the two have independent effects on the learning and retention components of motor adaptation. Negative feedback, whether graded or binary, accelerated learning. While it was not necessary for the negative feedback to be coupled to monetary loss, it had to be clearly related to the actual performance on the preceding movement. Positive feedback did not speed up learning, but it increased retention of the motor memory when performance feedback was withdrawn. These findings reinforce the view that independent mechanisms underpin learning and retention in motor adaptation, reject the assumption that motor adaptation is independent of motivational feedback, and raise new questions regarding the neural basis of negative and positive motivational feedback in motor learning.

• Publisher: Nature Publishing Group US,Nature Publishing Group
• Subject: 631/378/1788 / 631/378/2632/1368 / 631/378/2632/1663 / Adaptation / Adaptation, Psychological - physiology / Adult / Animal Genetics and Genomics / Behavioral Sciences / Biological Techniques / Biomedicine / Experiments / Feedback / Feedback, Psychological - physiology / Female / Humans / Hypotheses / Learning - physiology / Male / Memory / Motivation - physiology / Motor Activity - physiology / Motor learning / Neurobiology / Neurosciences / Psychological aspects / Psychological research / Psychomotor Performance - physiology / Punishment / Retention / Retention, Psychology - physiology / Reward / Reward (Psychology) / Young Adult