FUNCTIONAL EQUIVALENCE OF MENTAL IMAGES AND ERRORS OF MOVEMENT

Four experiments are reported demonstrating that mental images are functionally equivalent to physical errors of movement in producing changes in visual-motor coordination, at both central and peripheral levels of the visual-motor system. In the first experiment, subjects in one condition pointed at a target seen through laterally displacing prisms and were instructed to imagine pointing errors identical to those recorded previously for subjects in a separate condition who actually observed their pointing errors. Changes in pointing accuracy during adaptation procedures and visual-motor aftereffects following these procedures for subjects who imagined their errors were proportional to visual-motor shifts and aftereffects for subjects who observed their errors. In the second experiment, these same imagery instructions resulted in identical pointing shifts and aftereffects even in the case where prisms did not displace the target. The third experiment showed that when subjects believe that their mental images of pointing errors do not correspond to their actual pointing errors, pointing aftereffects result that are characteristic of the processing of error information at peripheral, but not central, levels of the visual motor system. The final experiment showed that when subjects do believe that their images of pointing errors correspond to actual pointing errors, but imagine the pointing movement itself in addition to their errors, pointing aftereffects result that are characteristic of the processing of error information at central, but not peripheral, levels of the visual-motor system. Contributions to visual-motor aftereffects from these two levels appear to be additive. Another significant result was that, in the imagery feedback conditions of each experiment, subjects who gave high ratings of vividness to their mental imagery showed the greatest magnitude of pointing aftereffects. These findings establish that mental images for errors of movement can produce stable visual-motor changes that cannot be accounted for simply by subjects' expectations regarding the actual consequences of their actions. © 1979.