Abstract²This study examined how movement of one arm
affects the rate of motor adaptation of the other arm during
bimanual reaching in a viscous force-field. Forty healthy adult
subjects performed four reaching tasks: (1) by dominant arm,
(2) by nondominant arm, (3) by both arms with only dominant
arm experiencing force-field and (4) by both arms with only
nondominant arm experiencing the force-field. For dominant
arm rate of motor adaptation was greater during the bimanual
task than the unimanual task. For nondominant arm reaching
errors were higher during the bimanual than unimanual task.
These results suggest that during bimanual reaching, transfer
of learning between arms occur in both directions and
movement information transferred depends on arm dominance.