Visuomotor learning is determined by the tonic component of feedback responses

When a movement error occurs, the motor system updates its commands to improve performance on subsequent trials. A prominent feedback error learning hypothesis proposes that the feedback response that corrects movement within a trial serves as a teaching signal for the learning response, observed as changes in motor commands on the next trial. However, how the temporal pattern of the feedback response influences the learning response remains unclear. Here, we introduce an experimental paradigm that directly compares the temporal patterns of feedback and learning responses across different patterns of visual error. We show that although the feedback response closely tracks the temporal pattern of the visual error, this temporal pattern is not transferred to the learning response. Instead, the amplitude of the feedback response during the holding period, reflecting the temporal pattern of the visual error, primarily determines the magnitude of the learning response. These findings reveal how the motor learning system selectively extracts specific components of feedback responses to update future motor commands.