On the plasticity of visual-proprioceptive bias effects.
Recent research has suggested that attentional factors play a role in determining the direction of intermodality adaptation. The present work explored the role of such factors in the visual/proprioceptive dominance, or bias, paradigm. In a preliminary experiment, an instructional approach was used and proved totally ineffective in shifting dominance. In Experiments 1 and 2, an active pointing approach was used, in which the subject was caused to concentrate on one modality or the other by having him localize a large number of unconflicted targets in that modality. This approach was successful in changing the normal dominance relation. Such an altered dominance relation may indeed be a necessary part of the shifting of normal adaptation patterns.
D001288:Attention; D006801:Humans; D008960:Models, Psychological; D009949:Orientation; D011434:Proprioception; D014796:Visual Perception