Year: 2026
Type: preprint
Abstract: Heart rate (HR) deceleration occurs following movement error and has been interpreted as an autonomic response to adverse behavioral outcomes. However, movement errors not only represent adverse movement outcomes but may also violate expectations. The present study employed a reaching movement paradigm using a robotic manipulandum in male and female human participants to dissociate the contributions of movement outcome and expectation violation to HR responses. We confirmed that HR deceleration occurred following visuomotor perturbations that induce movement errors, consistent with previous studies. However, when contextual cues predicted upcoming movement outcomes, HR deceleration emerged during movement preparation rather than following movement error, suggesting the involvement of expectation in HR responses. Moreover, across varying levels of expectation for different movement outcomes, HR deceleration was associated with unexpected movement outcomes rather than with the negative valence of movement outcomes. By altering target width to permit successful movements despite visuomotor rotations, we further found that HR deceleration was more strongly associated with task error than with sensory prediction error. Together, these findings indicate that HR responses during movement are more closely associated with violations of movement expectation than with movement error itself. These findings provide a new perspective on autonomic responses during sensorimotor processing and suggest that HR may serve as a physiological marker of expectation-related processing during movement. Significance Statement The present study links sensorimotor and psychophysiological research by investigating what heart rate (HR) responses reflect during rapid motor behavior. Although HR deceleration following movement errors has been interpreted as an autonomic response to adverse outcomes, movement errors often also violate expectations. By experimentally dissociating movement outcome, expectation, and different forms of sensorimotor error, we show that HR deceleration is more closely associated with violations of movement expectation than with movement error itself. These findings provide a new interpretation of error-related autonomic responses during motor behavior and suggest that HR may serve as a physiological marker of expectation-related processing during movement.
Authors: Wei Po Wu, Daichi Nozaki, Takuji Hayashi
Language: English
Topic: Motor Control and Adaptation
Subfield: Cognitive Neuroscience
Field: Neuroscience
Domain: Life Sciences
Open Access status: green
Awards: Effect of sensory prediction error on reward-based action selection, G2112697643, Elucidation of the control and learning processes of multi-degree-of-freedom body movements, Neural Mechanisms Regulating Motor Learning Speed, Investigating the peculiarity of motor control ability for skillful upper limb manipulation in athletes and its neural mechanism
OpenAlex ID: W7208831123