Coordination of Action in Distributed, but Unequal, Bimanual Tasks

许多活动需要我们的双手一起工作，但它们协调的方式根据任务的不同而不同。例如，当钉钉子时，一只手必须稳定钉子，而另一只手则摆动锤子。当打开罐子时，手需要向不同的方向施加压力，我们的抓地力根据被握住的表面的大小和纹理进行调整。这两个活动都需要手有不同的责任和动作，但手必须合作才能完成任务。这个项目探索了如何学习合作的双工控制，以及当需求改变时协调如何调整。这些发现对于中风后的康复，特别是对许多依赖于双手不对称运动的日常生活活动，以及对人机界面的优化设计，都应该是有参考价值的。此外，计划中的课堂演示和研讨会在学年和暑期为当地小学生提供机器人体验。双手任务通常涉及控制的不平等分配，两个肢体具有互补的责任和运动功能。尽管有越来越多的文献研究使用一只肢体学习新的运动模式时涉及的神经过程，但对于两只手如何协调控制完成一项单一任务，特别是当所需的运动功能不同时，我们的理解存在很大差距。研究人员使用了一种新的运动协调任务，要求两条肢体控制单个虚拟物体的不同方面。这使他们能够探索协调任务的一个特征的扰动如何影响另一个未受干扰的肢体的行为。其他条件则探讨运动动作与协调控制知觉(即代理感)之间的关系。通过量化这些行为变化，这些研究提供了对我们如何完成日常活动的更深层次的理解，这些活动需要两只手不同但同步的运动功能(例如，切食物、扣纽扣等)。这一奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Many activities require our hands to work together but the way they coordinate differs depending on the task. For example, when hammering a nail, one hand must stabilize the nail while the other swings the hammer. When opening a jar, the hands need to exert pressure in different directions and our grip adjusts based on the size and texture of the surface that is gripped. Both these activities require the hands to have different responsibilities and movements, but the hands must cooperate to accomplish the task. This project explores how cooperative bimanual control is learned and how the coordination adjusts when the requirements change. The findings should be informative for rehabilitation after stroke, especially for the many activities of daily living that rely on bimanual asymmetric movements, as well as for optimal design of human-machine interfaces. In addition, planned classroom demonstrations and workshops provide local elementary school students with robotics experiences during the school year and in the summer. Bimanual tasks typically involve an unequal distribution of control, with the two limbs having complementary responsibilities and motor functions. Although there is a growing literature on the neural processes involved when learning new motor patterns using one limb, there is a substantial gap in our understanding of how the two hands coordinate control in accomplishing a single task, particularly when the required motor functions are not the same. The investigators use a novel motor coordination task that requires the two limbs to control different aspects of a single virtual object. This allows them to explore how perturbations of one feature of the coordinated task influence the behavior of the other, unperturbed limb. Other conditions probe the relationships between motor actions and the perception of coordinated control (i.e., the sense of agency). By quantifying these changes in behavior, these studies provide a deeper understanding of how we accomplish daily activities that require different, but synchronized motor functions from the two hands (e.g., chopping food, fastening buttons, etc.) and will provide a foundation for studying how the brain controls bimanual actions.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.