Motor compensations, not sensory errors, regulate serial dependence in naturalistic speech production

Motor control is essential for organisms to efficiently interact with external world by maintaining accuracy and precision of actions and adapting to changes in the future. For example, speaking, one of the most complicated scenarios of motor control, utilize sensory errors and resultant motor compensation to precisely control articulation. However, how these distinct sensorimotor processes regulate subsequent production remains in debate. Here, we implemented a serial dependence paradigm by randomly perturbing pitch of auditory feedback in a sequence of trials to dissociate the effects of sensory errors and motor compensation on current production. We found that error-based motor compensation in preceding trials, rather than sensory errors, attracted the compensatory responses in the current trial. Critically, this serial dependence remained across difference lexical categories but only when the consecutive productions were in the same syntactic structure. The study provides ecologically valid evidence supporting that error-based motor experience is a crucial factor mediating adaptation and control.