Article

Humans have unique abilities in using tools. The skilled and goal-directed use of
a tool implies that processes of motor control can be adjusted to the
transformation of the movement of a part of the body into the movement of the
effective part of the tool. A common example is the transformation of a hand
movement in the motion of a cursor on a computer monitor. In part the adjustments
to such transformations are implicit, that is, without conscious awareness of the
novel transformation and the appropriate change of one's own movements. However,
the adjustments can also be explicit and intentional. We review a series of
experiments which show that implicit and explicit adjustments to a novel
visuo-motor gain are additive. This finding suggests that the processes which
generate different types of adjustment are functionally independent. In a second
series of experiments it turned out that at older adult age explicit adjustments
to novel visuo-motor transformations are impaired, whereas implicit adjustments
remain unaffected across working age.
CI - Copyright (c) 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Langue : ANGLAIS