Haptic Identification of Virtual Surfaces

描述（由申请人提供）：日常任务，如处理和操纵物体，可能对中风幸存者构成困难的挑战。我们的大脑控制手臂运动的方式很可能是由我们与物体互动的经验以及它们的机械和动态特性所塑造的。在到达运动过程中，关于表面和障碍物的信息隐含地融入到我们的动作中。为了了解人类如何通过触摸获得触觉信息，已经进行了大量的研究。人们也做了大量的工作来理解我们是如何产生伸展动作的。虽然这些主题本身对于理解我们如何与环境相互作用都很重要，但很明显，对环境相互作用的真正理解涉及到触觉相互作用和到达运动所涉及的神经过程的同时结合。然而，关于运动是如何受触觉影响的研究却很少。这个建议将检查与固定装置接触的运动中涉及的神经过程。我的目标是将触觉研究和运动控制研究整合到一个统一的概念框架中。我假设，与表面的触觉相互作用可以用神经系统两种不同的运动原元的组合来描述：位置控制原元和力控制原元。本提案将提出实验和计算模型来确定这些原语是否确实存在于神经系统中，以及这些原语是否可以被训练以增强触觉感知。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Everyday tasks, such as handling and manipulating objects, may pose difficult challenges for survivors of stroke. The way in which our brain controls arm movements is likely to be shaped by our experience of interactions with objects and their mechanical and dynamic properties. During reaching movements information about surfaces and obstacles is implicitly incorporated into our actions. Much research has been performed to understand how humans acquire haptic information through touch. There has also been a great deal of work performed to understand how we generate reaching movements. While each of these topics in and of itself is important to understand how we interact with our environment, it is evident that true understanding of environmental interaction involves the simultaneous incorporation of the neural processes involved in haptic interaction as well as reaching movement. However, very little work has been performed to understand how movement is effected by haptic sense. This proposal will examine the neural processes involved during reaching movements in contact with fixtures. My goal is to bring haptic research and motor control research into a unified conceptual framework. I hypothesize that haptic interactions with surfaces can be described by the nervous system's combination of two distinct motor primitives: a position control primitive and a force control primitive. This proposal will present experiments and computational modeling to establish if these primitives do in fact exist in the nervous system, and if these primitives may be trained to enhance haptic perception.