When more is less: Increasing allocentric visual information can switch visual-proprioceptive combination from an optimal to sub-optimal process

When reaching for an object in the environment, the brain often has access to multiple independent estimates of that object's location. For example, if someone places their coffee cup on a table, then later they know where it is because they see it, but also because they remember how their reaching limb was oriented when they placed the cup. Intuitively, one would expect more accurate reaches if either of these estimates were improved (e.g., if a light were turned on so the cup were more visible). It is now well-established that the brain tends to combine two or more estimates about the same stimulus as a maximum-likelihood estimator (MLE), which is the best thing to do when estimates are unbiased. Even in the presence of small biases, relying on the MLE rule is still often better than choosing a single estimate. For this work, we designed a reaching task in which human subjects could integrate proprioceptive and allocentric (landmark-relative) visual information to reach for a remembered target. Even though both of these modalities contain some level of bias, we demonstrate via simulation that our subjects should use an MLE rule in preference to relying on one modality or the other in isolation. Furthermore, we show that when visual information is poor, subjects do, indeed, combine information in this way. However, when we improve the quality of visual information, subjects counter-intuitively switch to a sub-optimal strategy that occasionally includes reliance on a single modality. (C) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.