Challenging balance during sensorimotor adaptation increases generalization.

From reaching to walking, real-life experience suggests that people can generalize between motor behaviors. One possible explanation for this generalization is that real-life behaviors often challenge our balance. We propose that the exacerbated body motions associated with balance-challenged whole body movements increase the value to the nervous system of using a comprehensive internal model to control the task. Because it is less customized to a specific task, a more comprehensive model is also a more generalizable model. Here we tested the hypothesis that challenging balance during adaptation would increase generalization of a newly learned internal model. We encouraged participants to learn a new internal model using prism lenses that created a new visuomotor mapping. Four groups of participants adapted to prisms while performing either a standing-based reaching or precision walking task, with or without a manipulation that challenged balance. To assess generalization after the adaptation phase, participants performed a single trial of each of the other groups' tasks without prisms. We found that both the reaching and walking balance-challenged groups showed significantly greater generalization to the equivalent, nonadapted task than the balance-unchallenged groups. Additionally, we found some evidence that all groups generalized across tasks, for example, from walking to reaching and vice versa, regardless of balance manipulation. Overall, our results demonstrate that challenging balance increases the degree to which a newly learned internal model generalizes to untrained movements.