Effect of Task Constraints on Motor Control of Pointing

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When humans reach to grasp an object, many different combinations ofmuscles and joints can be used than are strictly necessary to achieveaccurate hand motion and final hand placement. Thus, when reaching tothe same location, two general strategies are possible: a) choose oneset of joint motions and use the same set every time, or b) use a rangeof different joint motions, each of which takes the hand to the samelocation. Using multiple, equivalent (i.e., in terms of the goal),joint combinations confers advantages under special circumstances,such as when a movement is unexpectedly disturbed. Scientists do notknow the extent to which the nervous system uses this strategy duringroutine tasks. This project will address this question by studyingreaching and pointing to target locations throughout the workspace. Motion of the arm and hand will be measured using high-speed videoanalysis. The experiments are designed to understand how factors suchas the subject's level of skill, the presence or absence of vision, andthe direction and curvature of the reach, influence which strategy isused. Formal modeling of the nervous system's control of reaching willbe used to help explain the experimental results and generatepredictions for future work.