Crosstalk Between Proximal and Distal Action Effects During Tool Use

2012 ◽  
Vol 220 (1) ◽  
pp. 10-15 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stefan Ladwig ◽  
Christine Sutter ◽  
Jochen Müsseler
Keyword(s):  
Visual Feedback ◽  
Closed Loop ◽  
Hand Movement ◽  
Tactile Feedback ◽  
The Other ◽  
Hand Movements ◽  
Action Effects ◽  
Transformation Experiment ◽  
Feature Overlap

When using a tool, proximal action effects (e.g., the hand movement on a digitizer tablet) and distal action effects (e.g., the cursor movement on a display) often do not correspond to or are even in conflict with each other. In the experiments reported here, we examined the role of proximal and distal action effects in a closed loop task of sensorimotor control. Different gain factors perturbed the relation between hand movements on the digitizer tablet and cursor movements on a display. In the experiments, the covert hand movement was held constant, while the cursor amplitude on the display was shorter, equal, or longer, and vice versa in the other condition. When participants were asked to replicate the hand movement without visual feedback, hand amplitudes varied in accordance with the displayed amplitudes. Adding a second transformation (Experiment 1: 90°-rotation of visual feedback, Experiment 2: 180°-rotation of visual feedback) reduced these aftereffects only when the discrepancy between hand movement and displayed movement was obvious. In conclusion, distal action effects assimilated proximal action effects when the proprioceptive/tactile feedback showed a feature overlap with the visual feedback on the display.

The Role of Online Visual Feedback for the Control of Target-Directed and Allocentric Hand Movements

2011 ◽  
Vol 105 (2) ◽  
pp. 846-859 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lore Thaler ◽  
Melvyn A. Goodale
Keyword(s):  
Visual Feedback ◽  
Visual Information ◽  
Sensory Feedback ◽  
Sensory Information ◽  
Movement Control ◽  
Sensorimotor Control ◽  
Hand Movements ◽  
Cast Doubt ◽  
Target Locations

Studies that have investigated how sensory feedback about the moving hand is used to control hand movements have relied on paradigms such as pointing or reaching that require subjects to acquire target locations. In the context of these target-directed tasks, it has been found repeatedly that the human sensory-motor system relies heavily on visual feedback to control the ongoing movement. This finding has been formalized within the framework of statistical optimality according to which different sources of sensory feedback are combined such as to minimize variance in sensory information during movement control. Importantly, however, many hand movements that people perform every day are not target-directed, but based on allocentric (object-centered) visual information. Examples of allocentric movements are gesture imitation, drawing, or copying. Here we tested if visual feedback about the moving hand is used in the same way to control target-directed and allocentric hand movements. The results show that visual feedback is used significantly more to reduce movement scatter in the target-directed as compared with the allocentric movement task. Furthermore, we found that differences in the use of visual feedback between target-directed and allocentric hand movements cannot be explained based on differences in uncertainty about the movement goal. We conclude that the role played by visual feedback for movement control is fundamentally different for target-directed and allocentric movements. The results suggest that current computational and neural models of sensorimotor control that are based entirely on data derived from target-directed paradigms have to be modified to accommodate performance in the allocentric tasks used in our experiments. As a consequence, the results cast doubt on the idea that models of sensorimotor control developed exclusively from data obtained in target-directed paradigms are also valid in the context of allocentric tasks, such as drawing, copying, or imitative gesturing, that characterize much of human behavior.

The Role of Hand Movement in Spatial Serial Order Memory

2020 ◽  
Vol 33 (3) ◽  
pp. 313-335
Author(s):  
Yangke Zhao ◽  
Chuansheng Chen ◽  
Xiuying Qian
Keyword(s):  
Hand Movement ◽  
Serial Order ◽  
Hand Movements ◽  
Facilitation Effect ◽  
Serial Memory ◽  
Backward Recall ◽  
Passive Viewing ◽  
Memory Experiment ◽  
Serial Order Memory

Abstract Research on serial order memory has traditionally used tasks where participants passively view the items. A few studies that included hand movement showed that such movement interfered with serial order memory. In the present study of three experiments, we investigated whether and how hand movements improved spatial serial order memory. Experiment 1 showed that manual tracing (i.e., hand movements that traced the presentation of stimuli on the modified eCorsi block tapping task) improved the performance of backward recall as compared to no manual tracing (the control condition). Experiment 2 showed that the facilitation effect resulted from voluntary hand movements and could not be achieved via passive viewing of another person’s manual tracing. Experiment 3 showed that it was the temporal, not the spatial, signal within manual tracing that facilitated spatial serial memory.

Complexity of sensorimotor transformations alters hand perception

2012 ◽  
Vol 25 (0) ◽  
pp. 28
Author(s):  
Christine Sutter ◽  
Stefan Ladwig ◽  
Sandra Sülzenbrück
Keyword(s):  
Closed Loop ◽  
Hand Movement ◽  
Action Effects ◽  
Sensorimotor Transformations ◽  
Sensory Effects ◽  
Spatial Reconstruction ◽  
High Predictability ◽  
Distant Action ◽  
Ideomotor Principle

When using tools effects in body space and distant space often do not correspond or are even in conflict. The ideomotor principle holds that actors select, initiate and execute movements by activating the anticipatory codes of the movements’ sensory effects (Greenwald, 1970; James, 1890). These may be representations of body-related effects and/or representations of more distal effects. Previous studies have demonstrated that distant action effects dominate action control, while body-related effects are attenuated (e.g., Müsseler and Sutter, 2009). In two experiments, participants performed closed-loop controlled movements on a covered digitizer tablet to control a cursor on a monitor. Different gains perturbed the relation between hand and cursor amplitude, so that the hand amplitude varied and the cursor amplitude remained constant, and vice versa. Within a block the location of amplitude perturbation randomly varied (low predictability) or not (high predictability). In Experiment 1 both trajectories of hand and cursor followed the same linear path, in Experiment 2 a linear hand trajectory produced a curved cursor trajectory on the monitor. When participants were asked to evaluate their hand movement, they were extremely uncertain about their trajectories. Both, predictability of amplitude perturbation and shape of cursor trajectory modulated the awareness of one’s own hand movements. We will discuss whether the low awareness of proximal action effects originates from an insufficient quality of the humans’ tactile and proprioceptive system or from an insufficient spatial reconstruction of this information in memory.

Sensitive Manipulation: Manipulation Through Tactile Feedback

2018 ◽  
Vol 15 (01) ◽  
pp. 1850012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eduardo Torres-Jara ◽  
Lorenzo Natale
Keyword(s):  
Remote Sensing ◽  
Visual Feedback ◽  
Humanoid Robot ◽  
Force Feedback ◽  
Tactile Feedback ◽  
The Other ◽  
Interaction Forces ◽  
Grasping And Manipulation ◽  
Compliant Actuators ◽  
Specific Orientation

Object grasping and manipulation in robotics has been largely approached using visual feedback. Human studies on the other hand have demonstrated the importance of tactile and force feedback to guide the interaction between the fingers and the objects. Inspired by these observations, we propose an approach that consists in guiding a robot’s actions mainly by tactile feedback, with remote sensing such as vision, used only as a complement. Directly sensing the interaction forces between the object, the environment, and the robot’s hand enables it to obtain information relevant to the task that can be used to perform it more reliably. This approach (that we call sensitive manipulation) requires important changes in the hardware and in the way the robot is programmed. At the hardware level, we exploit compliant actuators and novel sensors that allow to safely interact and detect the environment. We developed strategies to perform manipulation tasks that take advantage of these new sensing and actuation capabilities. In this paper, we demonstrate that using these strategies the humanoid robot Obrero can safely find, reach and grab unknown objects that are neither held in place by a fixture nor placed in a specific orientation. The robot can also make insertions by “feeling” the hole without specialized mechanisms such as a remote center of compliance (RCC).

Bridging the gap between the other and me: the functional role of motor resonance and action effects in infants’ imitation

2011 ◽  
Vol 14 (4) ◽  
pp. 901-910 ◽  
Author(s):  
Markus Paulus ◽  
Sabine Hunnius ◽  
Marlies Vissers ◽  
Harold Bekkering
Keyword(s):  
Functional Role ◽  
The Other ◽  
Motor Resonance ◽  
Action Effects

scholarly journals Influence of visual feedback persistence on visuo-motor skill improvement

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alyssa Unell ◽  
Zachary M. Eisenstat ◽  
Ainsley Braun ◽  
Abhinav Gandhi ◽  
Sharon Gilad-Gutnick ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Visual Feedback ◽  
Visual Information ◽  
Critical Role ◽  
Hand Movement ◽  
Two Dimensions ◽  
Control Group ◽  
Skill Improvement ◽  
Curve Tracing ◽  
Training Protocol

Towards the larger goal of understanding factors relevant for improving visuo-motor control, we investigated the role of visual feedback for modulating the effectiveness of a simple hand-eye training protocol. The regimen comprised a series of curve tracing tasks undertaken over a period of one week by neurologically healthy individuals with their non-dominant hands. Our three subject groups differed in the training they experienced: those who received ‘Persistent’ visual-feedback by seeing their hand and trace evolve in real-time superimposed upon the reference patterns, those who received ‘Non-Persistent’ visual-feedback seeing their hand movement but not the emerging trace, and a ‘Control’ group that underwent no training. Improvements in performance were evaluated along two dimensions – accuracy and steadiness, to assess visuo-motor and motor skills, respectively. We found that persistent feedback leads to a significantly greater improvement in accuracy than non-persistent feedback. Steadiness, on the other hand, benefits from training irrespective of the persistence of feedback. Our results not only demonstrate the feasibility of rapid visuo-motor learning in adulthood, but more specifically, the influence of visual veridicality and a critical role for dynamically emergent visual information.

scholarly journals Visual Selection of the Future Reach Path in Obstacle Avoidance

2018 ◽  
Vol 30 (12) ◽  
pp. 1846-1857 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Baldauf
Keyword(s):  
Visual Field ◽  
Visual Attention ◽  
Hand Movement ◽  
Motor Preparation ◽  
Hand Movements ◽  
Movement Preparation ◽  
Dot Probe ◽  
Manual Movements ◽  
Selection Of

In two EEG experiments, we studied the role of visual attention during the preparation of manual movements around an obstacle. Participants performed rapid hand movements to a goal position avoiding a central obstacle either on the left or right side, depending on the pitch of the acoustical go signal. We used a dot probe paradigm to analyze the deployment of spatial attention in the visual field during the motor preparation. Briefly after the go signal but still before the hand movement actually started, a visual transient was flashed either on the planned pathway of the hand (congruent trials) or on the opposite, movement-irrelevant side (incongruent trials). The P1/N1 components that were evoked by the onset of the dot probe were enhanced in congruent trials where the visual transient was presented on the planned path of the hand. The results indicate that, during movement preparation, attention is allocated selectively to the planned trajectory the hand is going to take around the obstacle.

scholarly journals Postural effects on arm movement variability are idiosyncratic and feedback-dependent

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Preyaporn Phataraphruk ◽  
Qasim Rahman ◽  
Kishor Lakshminarayanan ◽  
Mitchell Fruchtman ◽  
Christopher A. Buneo
Keyword(s):  
Visual Feedback ◽  
Hand Movement ◽  
Frontal Plane ◽  
Arm Movement ◽  
Reaching Movements ◽  
Movement Direction ◽  
Movement Variability ◽  
Postural Effects ◽  
3D Space

AbstractReaching movements are subject to noise arising during the sensing, planning and execution phases of movement production, which contributes to movement variability. When vision of the moving hand is available, reaching variability appears to be strongly influenced by noise occurring during the specification and/or online updating of movement plans in visual coordinates. In contrast, when vision of the hand is unavailable, variability appears more dependent upon hand movement direction, suggesting a greater influence of execution noise. Given that execution noise acts in part at the muscular level, we hypothesized that reaching variability should depend not only on movement direction but initial arm posture as well. Moreover, given that the effects of execution noise are more apparent when movements are performed without vision of the hand, we reasoned that postural effects would be more evident when visual feedback was withheld. To test these hypotheses, subjects planned memory-guided reaching movements to three frontal plane targets, using either an “adducted” or “abducted” initial arm posture. Movements were then executed with and without hand vision. We found that the effects of initial arm posture on movement variability were idiosyncratic in both visual feedback conditions. In addition, without visual feedback, posture-dependent differences in variability varied with movement extent, growing abruptly larger in magnitude during the terminal phases of movement, and were moderately correlated with differences in mean endpoint positions. The results emphasize the role of factors other than noise (i.e. biomechanics and suboptimal sensorimotor integration) in constraining patterns of movement variability in 3D space.

scholarly journals Influence of visual feedback persistence on visuo-motor skill improvement

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Alyssa Unell ◽  
Zachary M. Eisenstat ◽  
Ainsley Braun ◽  
Abhinav Gandhi ◽  
Sharon Gilad-Gutnick ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Visual Feedback ◽  
Visual Information ◽  
Critical Role ◽  
Hand Movement ◽  
Two Dimensions ◽  
Control Group ◽  
Skill Improvement ◽  
Curve Tracing ◽  
Training Protocol

AbstractTowards the larger goal of understanding factors relevant for improving visuo-motor control, we investigated the role of visual feedback for modulating the effectiveness of a simple hand-eye training protocol. The regimen comprised a series of curve tracing tasks undertaken over a period of one week by neurologically healthy individuals with their non-dominant hands. Our three subject groups differed in the training they experienced: those who received ‘Persistent’ visual-feedback by seeing their hand and trace evolve in real-time superimposed upon the reference patterns, those who received ‘Non-Persistent’ visual-feedback seeing their hand movement but not the emerging trace, and a ‘Control’ group that underwent no training. Improvements in performance were evaluated along two dimensions—accuracy and steadiness, to assess visuo-motor and motor skills, respectively. We found that persistent feedback leads to a significantly greater improvement in accuracy than non-persistent feedback. Steadiness, on the other hand, benefits from training irrespective of the persistence of feedback. Our results not only demonstrate the feasibility of rapid visuo-motor learning in adulthood, but more specifically, the influence of visual veridicality and a critical role for dynamically emergent visual information.

The Impact of Visual Feedback Type on the Mastery of Visuo-Motor Transformations

2012 ◽  
Vol 220 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-9 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sandra Sülzenbrück
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Research ◽  
Visual Feedback ◽  
Closed Loop ◽  
Motor Planning ◽  
Visual Input ◽  
Closed Loop Control ◽  
Loop Control ◽  
Feedback Type ◽  
Effective Use ◽  
The Impact

For the effective use of modern tools, the inherent visuo-motor transformation needs to be mastered. The successful adjustment to and learning of these transformations crucially depends on practice conditions, particularly on the type of visual feedback during practice. Here, a review about empirical research exploring the influence of continuous and terminal visual feedback during practice on the mastery of visuo-motor transformations is provided. Two studies investigating the impact of the type of visual feedback on either direction-dependent visuo-motor gains or the complex visuo-motor transformation of a virtual two-sided lever are presented in more detail. The findings of these studies indicate that the continuous availability of visual feedback supports performance when closed-loop control is possible, but impairs performance when visual input is no longer available. Different approaches to explain these performance differences due to the type of visual feedback during practice are considered. For example, these differences could reflect a process of re-optimization of motor planning in a novel environment or represent effects of the specificity of practice. Furthermore, differences in the allocation of attention during movements with terminal and continuous visual feedback could account for the observed differences.

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