Task dependent coarticulation of movement sequences

Reviewer #1 (Public Review):

Summary:

In this paper, Kalidini and Crevecoeur ask why sequential movements are sometimes coarticulated. To answer this question, first, they modified a standard optimal controller to perform consecutive reaches to two targets (T1 and T2). They investigated the optimal solution with and without a constraint on the endpoint's velocity in the via target (T1). They observed that the controller coarticulates the movements only when there is no constraint on the speed at the via-point. They characterized coarticulation in two ways: First, T2 affected the curvature of the first reach in unperturbed reaches. Second, T2 affected corrective movements in response to a mechanical perturbation of the first reach.

Parallel to the modeling work, they ran the same experiment on human participants. The participants were instructed to either consider T1 as via point (go task) or to slow down in T1 and then continue to T2 (stop task). Mirroring the simulation results, they observed coarticulation only in the go task. Interestingly, in the go task, when the initial reach was occasionally perturbed, the long-latency feedback responses differed for different T2 targets, suggesting that the information about the final target was already present in the motor circuits that mediate the long-latency response. In summary, they conclude that coarticulation in sequential tasks depends on instruction, and when coarticulation happens, the corrections in earlier segments of movement reflect the entirety of the coarticulated sequence.

Evaluation

Among many strengths of this paper, most notably, the results and the experiment design are grounded in, and guided by the optimal control simulation. The methods and procedures are appropriate and standard. The results and methods are explained sufficiently and the paper is written clearly. The results on modulation of long-latency response based on future goals are interesting and of broad interest for future experiments on motor control in sequential movement. However, I find the authors' framing of these results, mostly in the introduction section, somewhat complicated.

The current version of the introduction motivates the study by suggesting that "coarticulation and separation of sub-movement [in sequential movements] have been formulated as distinct hypotheses" and this apparent distinction, which led to contradictory results, can be resolved by Optimal Feedback Control (OFC) framework in which task-optimized control gains control coarticulation. This framing seems complicated for two main reasons. First, the authors use chunking and coarticulation interchangeably. However, as originally proposed by (Miller 1956), the chunking of the sequence items may fully occur at an abstract level like working memory, with no motoric coarticulation of sequence elements at the level of motor execution. In this scenario, sequence production will be faster due to the proactive preparation of sequence elements. This simple dissociation between chunking and coarticulation may already explain the apparent contradiction between the previous works mentioned in the introduction section. Second, the authors propose the OFC as a novel approach for studying neural correlates of sequence production. While I agree that OFC simulations can be highly insightful as a normative model for understanding the importance of sequence elements, it is unclear to me how OFCs can generate new hypotheses regarding the neural implementation of sequential movements. For instance, if the control gains are summarizing the instruction of the task and the relevance of future targets, it is unclear in which brain areas, or how these control gains are implemented. I believe the manuscript will benefit from making points more clear in the introduction and the discussion sections.

Reviewer #2 (Public Review):

Summary:

In this manuscript, the authors examine the question of whether discrete action sequences and coarticulated continuous sequential actions can be produced from the same controller, without having to derive separate control policies for each sequential movement. Using modeling and behavioral experiments, the authors demonstrate that this is indeed possible if the constraints of the policy are appropriately specified. These results are of interest to those interested in motor sequences, but it is unclear whether these findings can be interpreted to apply to the control of sequences more broadly (see weaknesses below).

Strengths:

The authors provide an interesting and novel extension of the stochastic optimal control model to demonstrate how different temporal constraints can lead to either individual or coarticulated movements. The authors use this model to make predictions about patterns of behavior (e.g., in response to perturbations), which they then demonstrate in human participants both by measuring movement kinematics as well as EMG. Together this work supports the authors' primary claims regarding how changes in task instructions (i.e., task constraints) can result in coarticulated or separated movement sequences and the extent to which the subsequent movement goal affects the planning and control of the previous movement.

Weaknesses:

I reviewed a prior version of this manuscript, and appreciate the authors addressing many of my previous comments. However, there are some concerns, particularly with regard to how the authors interpret their findings.

(1) It would be helpful for the authors to discuss whether they think there is a fundamental distinction between a coarticulated sequence and a single movement passing through a via point (or equivalently, avoiding an obstacle). The notion of a coarticulated sequence brings with it the notion of sequential (sub)movements and temporal structure, whereas the latter can be treated as more of a constraint on the production of a single continuous movement. If I am interpreting the authors' findings correctly it seems they are suggesting that these are not truly different kinds of movements at the level of a control policy, but it would be helpful for the authors to clarify this claim.

(2) The authors' model clearly shows that each subsequent target only influences the movement of one target back, but not earlier ones (page 7 lines 199-204). This stands in contrast to the paper they cite from Kashefi 2023, in which those authors clearly show that people account for at least 2 targets in the future when planning/executing the current movement. It would be useful to know whether this distinction arises because of a difference in experimental methodology, or because the model is not capturing something about human behavior.

(3) In my prior review I raised a concern that the authors seem to be claiming that because they can use a single control policy for both coarticulated and separated movement sequences, there need not be any higher-level or explicit specification of whether the movements are sequential. While much of that language has been removed, it still appears in a few places (e.g., p. 13, lines 403-404). As previously noted, the authors' control policy can generate both types of movements as long as the proper constraints are provided to the model. However, these constraints must be specified somewhere (potentially explicitly, as the authors do by providing them as task instructions). Moreover, in typical sequence tasks, although some movements become coarticulated, people also tend to form chunks with distinct chunk boundaries, which presumably means that there is at least some specification of the sequential ordering of these chunks that must exist (otherwise the authors' model might suggest that people can coarticulate forever without needing to exhibit any chunk boundaries). Hence the authors should limit themselves to the narrow claim that a single control policy can lead to separated or coarticulated movements given an appropriate set of constraints, but acknowledge that their work cannot speak to where or how those constraints are specified in humans (i.e., that there could still be an explicit sequence representation guiding coarticulation).