Abstract
When vision and proprioception are rendered incongruent during a hand localisation task, vision is initially weighted more than proprioception in determining location, and proprioception gains more weighting over time. However, it is not known whether, under these incongruency conditions, particular areas of space are also weighted more heavily than others, nor whether explicit knowledge of the sensory incongruence (i.e. disconfirming the perceived location of the hand) modulates the effect. Here, we hypothesised that both non-informative inputs coming from one side of space and explicit knowledge of sensory incongruence would modulate perceived location of the limb. Specifically, we expected spatial weighting to shift hand localisation towards the weighted area of space, and we expected greater weighting of proprioceptive input once perceived location was demonstrated to be inaccurate. We manipulated spatial weighting using an established auditory cueing paradigm (Experiment 1, n = 18) and sensory incongruence using the ‘disappearing hand trick’ (Experiment 2, n = 9). Our first hypothesis was not supported—spatial weighting did not modulate hand localisation. Our second hypothesis was only partially supported—disconfirmation of hand position did lead to more accurate localisations, even if participants were still unaware of their hand position. This raised the possibility that rather than disconfirmation, a simple movement of the hand in view could update the sensory–motor system, by immediately increasing the weighting of proprioceptive input relative to visual input. This third hypothesis was then confirmed (Experiment 3, n = 9). These results suggest that hand localisation is robust in the face of differential weighting of space, but open to modulation in a modality-specific manner, when one sense (vision) is rendered inaccurate.
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Acknowledgments
We wish to thank A Prof Roger Newport from Nottingham University for extensive and very helpful comments on earlier versions of this manuscript.
Funding
G. Lorimer Moseley (ID 1061279) and Tasha R. Stanton (ID 1054041) are supported by National Health & Medical Research Council Research Fellowships and an Italian postgraduate scholarship to Valeria Bellan.
Author contributions
VB, HRG, TRS, AG and GLM conceived and designed the experiments. VB, HRG and LKD collected the data. All authors participated in the analysis and interpretation of the data and in the drafting of the manuscript. All authors approved the final version of the manuscript submitted for publication.
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GLM has received support from Pfizer, Kaiser Permanente, Agile Physiotherapy, Results Physiotherapy, and Workers' Compensation Authorities in Australia, North American and Europe. GLM receives royalties for books on pain and rehabilitation and speaker fees for lectures on pain and rehabilitation.
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All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki Declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.
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Bellan, V., Gilpin, H.R., Stanton, T.R. et al. Relative contributions of spatial weighting, explicit knowledge and proprioception to hand localisation during positional ambiguity. Exp Brain Res 235, 447–455 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00221-016-4782-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00221-016-4782-6