Visual-motor contingency during symbol production contributes to short-term changes in the functional connectivity during symbol perception and long-term gains in symbol recognition

Letter production relies on a tight coupling between motor movements and visual feedback—each stroke of the letter is visually experienced as it is produced. Experience with letter production leads to increases in functional connectivity, a measure of neural communication, among visual and motor brain systems and leads to gains in letter recognition in preliterate children. We hypothesized that the contingency between the motor and visual experiences of the written form during production would result in both effects. Twenty literate adults were trained on four sets of novel symbols over the course of one week. Each symbol set was trained through one of four training conditions: drawing with ink, drawing without ink, watching a handwritten symbol unfold as if being drawn, and watching a static handwritten symbol. Contingency of motor and visual experiences occurred in the drawing with ink condition. The motor and visual experiences were rendered non-contingent in each of the other three conditions by controlling for visual or motor experience. Participants were presented with the trained symbols during fMRI scanning at three time points: one pre-training, one post-training, and one after a week-long no-training delay. Recognition was tested after each training session and after the third scan. We found that the contingency between visual and motor experiences during production changed the pattern of functional connectivity among visual, motor, and auditory neural communities and resulted in better recognition performance at post-training than at pre-training. Recognition gains were maintained after the no-training delay, but the functional connections observed immediately after training returned to their pre-training baselines. Our results suggest that behaviors that couple sensory and motor systems result in temporary changes in neura communication during perception that may not directly support changes in recognition.