Shadmehr R, Smith MA, & Krakauer JW (2010) Error Correction, Sensory Prediction, and Adaptation in Motor Control. Annual Review of Neuroscience, 33:89-108.
Abstract: Motor control is the study of how organisms make accurate goal-directed
movements. Here we consider two problems that the motor system must solve in order to achieve such control. The first problem is
that sensory feedback is noisy and delayed, which can make movements
inaccurate and unstable. The second problem is that the relationship
between a motor command and the movement it produces is variable,
as the body and the environment can both change. A solution is to build
adaptive internal models of the body and the world. The predictions
of these internal models, called forward models because they transform
motor commands into sensory consequences, can be used to both produce
a lifetime of calibrated movements, and to improve the ability of
the sensory system to estimate the state of the body and the world around
it. Forward models are only useful if they produce unbiased predictions.
Evidence shows that forward models remain calibrated through motor
adaptation: learning driven by sensory prediction errors.