Consolidation Separates Implicit and Explicit Components of Compound Motor Memories
Motor adaptation involves the parallel operation of implicit recalibration and explicit re-aiming processes. During naturalistic learning, these systems interact, producing compound behavioral outputs that reflect their combined contributions. It remains unclear whether simultaneously engaged implicit and explicit processes form a single unified representation, or generate parallel memory representations that are merely co-expressed, and how consolidation transforms such representations. We addressed these questions across three visuomotor adaptation experiments (n = 120), in which the implicit process was engaged via gradual cursor rotation and the explicit process via target jump, by systematically manipulating the sequence of learning and the timing of expression. Immediately after learning, behavior reflected an inflexible, integrated memory that could not be decomposed by changing task demands. Following 24-hour consolidation, however, expression became component-selective, with implicit or explicit contributions retrieved in response to task demand. This reorganization had direct consequences on relearning, producing facilitation when the expressed and relearned components matched and interference when they mismatched. Moreover, when implicit adaptation was stabilized prior to compound learning, consolidation preserved the updated state rather than the original implicit representation. Together, these findings demonstrate that consolidation does not merely stabilize compound motor memories. Instead, it actively reorganizes them, transforming the initially integrated representations into independent, context-dependent components.