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较高的任务时，顺序效应的重要性。初步实验结果表明，避障的顺序效应显著。具体地说，当有障碍物和没有障碍物的实验混合在一起进行时，无障碍物实验中的手部路径比没有障碍物时进行相同动作的参与者的手部路径更弯曲。这种被称为障碍持续（OP）效应的顺序效应被认为是由于感知运动系统在某些条件下无法从进行避障运动切换到非避障运动。在三个实验中，实验间隔时间、障碍大小和可能目标位置的数量将被操纵。将对这些变量进行操作，以获得进一步的行为数据，这些数据将有助于确定OP效应的来源。这些信息不仅有助于对避障行为的控制；这也将有助于更好地理解感知-运动系统是如何运作的。

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.