Sensorimotor feedback loops are selectively sensitive to reward

Abstract
Data availability
Article and author information
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Abstract

Although it is well established that motivational factors such as earning more money for performing well improve motor performance, how the motor system implements this improvement remains unclear. For instance, feedback-based control, which uses sensory feedback from the body to correct for errors in movement, improves with greater reward. But feedback control encompasses many feedback loops with diverse characteristics such as the brain regions involved and their response time. Which specific loops drive these performance improvements with reward is unknown, even though their diversity makes it unlikely that they are contributing uniformly. We systematically tested the effect of reward on the latency (how long for a corrective response to arise?) and gain (how large is the corrective response?) of seven distinct sensorimotor feedback loops in humans. Only the fastest feedback loops were insensitive to reward, and the earliest reward-driven changes were consistently an increase in feedback gains, not a reduction in latency. Rather, a reduction of response latencies only tended to occur in slower feedback loops. These observations were similar across sensory modalities (vision and proprioception). Our results may have implications regarding feedback control performance in athletic coaching. For instance, coaching methodologies that rely on reinforcement or 'reward shaping' may need to specifically target aspects of movement that rely on reward-sensitive feedback responses.

Data availability

All behavioural data and analysis code are freely available online on the Open Science Framework website at https://osf.io/7t8yj/

The following data sets were generated

1. Olivier Codol
(2021) Sensorimotor feedback loops are selectively sensitive to reward
DOI: 10.17605/OSF.IO/7T8YJ.

https://osf.io/7t8yj/

The following previously published data sets were used

1. Olivier Codol
(2019) Reward-based improvements in motor control are driven by multiple error-reducing mechanisms
Open Science Framework.

https://osf.io/7as8g/

Article and author information

Author details

Olivier Codol

Brain and Mind Institute, Western University, London, Canada

For correspondence
codol.olivier@gmail.com

Competing interests
The authors declare that no competing interests exist.

"This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0003-0796-5457
Mehrdad Kashefi

Brain and Mind Institute, Western University, London, Canada

Competing interests
The authors declare that no competing interests exist.

"This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0001-5981-5923
Christopher J Forgaard

Brain and Mind Institute, Western University, London, Canada

Competing interests
The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
Joseph M Galea

School of Psychology, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, United Kingdom

Competing interests
The authors declare that no competing interests exist.

"This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0002-0009-4049
J Andrew Pruszynski

Department of Physiology and Pharmacology, Western University, London, Canada

Competing interests
The authors declare that no competing interests exist.

"This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0003-0786-0081
Paul L Gribble

Brain and Mind Institute, Western University, London, Canada

Competing interests
The authors declare that no competing interests exist.

"This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0002-1368-032X

Funding

Natural Science and Engineering Council of Canada (RGPIN-2018-05458)

Paul L Gribble

Canadian Institue of Health Research (PJT-156241)

Paul L Gribble

The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.

Ethics

Human subjects: All participants signed a consent form to provide informed consent prior to the experimental session. Recruitment and data collection were done in accordance with the requirements of the research ethics board at Western University, Project ID # 115787.

Copyright

This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License permitting unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.