Abstract
We investigated how human subjects adapt
to forces perturbing the motion of their arms. We found that
this kind of learning is based on the capacity of the central
nervous system (CNS) to predict and therefore to cancel
externally applied perturbing forces. Our experimental results
indicate: (i) that the ability of the CNS to compensate for
the perturbing forces is restricted to those spatial locations
where the perturbations have been experienced by the moving
arm. The subjects also are able to compensate for forces
experienced at neighboring workspace locations. However,
adaptation decays smoothly and quickly with distance from
the locations where disturbances had been sensed by the
moving limb. (ii) Our experiments also show that the CNS
builds an internal model of the external perturbing forces in
intrinsic (muscle and or joints) coordinates
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