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Description
Theories of motor control predict that discrepancies between intended and observed outcomes are compensated. However, occasionally, opposite responses occur that “follow” a disturbance, the reason for which remains elusive.
We investigated this paradoxical behavior in an MEG experiment employing a novel MEG-compatible musical instrument. 19 musicians performed an auditory pitch control task in which slow continuous and fast intermittent pitch alterations had to be compensated by moving a button. We identified compensating and less frequent following responses to fast pitch alterations.
Following responses occurred when context-dependent surprisal about the sensorimotor contingency was high. Computational modeling revealed that these responses can reflect active confirmatory sampling that stabilizes a sensorimotor law under uncertainty.
MEG analyses employing tempo-spatial GAMs revealed increased local active information storage – a measure of self-informativeness – during pitch shifts followed by following responses compared to compensating responses. Following responses therefore may be related to on-line internal updating processes.