Sequential effects in obstacle avoidance

描述（由申请人提供）：本研究的目标是证明在执行绕过障碍物的计算要求高的任务时，顺序效应的重要性。初步实验的结果表明，在避障显着的顺序效应。具体而言，当障碍物存在和非障碍物试验混合在一个块内达到试验，在非障碍物试验中的手路径更弯曲的手路径从参与者谁执行相同的动作时，没有障碍物。这种连续效应被称为障碍持续（obstacle-perseveration，OP）效应，被认为是由于感知运动系统在某些条件下无法从执行避障运动切换到非避障运动。在三个拟议的实验中，试验之间的时间，障碍物的大小和可能的目标位置的数量将被操纵。将对这些变量进行操作，以获得有助于识别OP效应来源的进一步行为数据。这样的信息不仅会阐明避障行为的控制，也会更好地理解感知运动系统的一般运作方式。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The goal of the present research is to demonstrate the importance of sequential effects when performing the computationally demanding task of reaching around obstacles. Results from a preliminary experiment showed significant sequential effects in obstacle avoidance. Specifically, when obstacle-present and non-obstacle trials were intermixed within a block of reaching trials, the handpaths in the non-obstacle trials were more curved than were handpaths from participants who performed the same movements when no obstacle was ever present. This sequential effect, called the obstacle-perseveration (OP) effect, is thought to be due to the perceptual-motor system's inability to switch from performing obstacle-avoiding movements to non-obstacle-avoiding movements under some conditions. In three proposed experiments, the time between trials, obstacle size, and number of possible target locations will be manipulated. Manipulation of these variables will be performed to obtain further behavioral data that will help identify the source(s) of the OP effect. Such information will not only shed light on the control of obstacle-avoidance behavior; it will also lead to a better understanding of how the perceptual-motor system operates in general.