TY - JOUR

T1 - Braking reaching movements

T2 - a test of the constant tau-dot strategy under different viewing conditions

AU - Hopkins, Brian

AU - Churchill, Andrew

AU - Vogt, Stefan

AU - Rönnqvist, Louise

PY - 2004/5/1

Y1 - 2004/5/1

N2 - Following F. Zaal and R. J. Bootsma (1995), the authors studied whether the decelerative phase of a reaching movement could be modeled as a constant tau-dot strategy resulting in a soft collision with the object. Specifically, they investigated whether that strategy is sustained over different viewing conditions. Participants (N = 11) were required to reach for 15- and 50-mm objects at 2 different distances under 3 conditions in which visual availability of the immediate environment and of the reaching hand were varied. Tau-dot estimates and goodness-of-fit were highly similar across the 3 conditions. Only within-participant variability of tau-dot estimates was increased when environmental cues were removed. That finding suggests that the motor system uses a tau-dot strategy involving the intermodal (i.e., visual, proprioceptive, or both) specification of information to regulate the decelerative phase of reaching under restricted viewing conditions. The authors provide recommendations for improving the derivation of $$ x estimates and stress the need for further research on how time-to-contact information is used in the regulation of the dynamics of actions such as reaching.

AB - Following F. Zaal and R. J. Bootsma (1995), the authors studied whether the decelerative phase of a reaching movement could be modeled as a constant tau-dot strategy resulting in a soft collision with the object. Specifically, they investigated whether that strategy is sustained over different viewing conditions. Participants (N = 11) were required to reach for 15- and 50-mm objects at 2 different distances under 3 conditions in which visual availability of the immediate environment and of the reaching hand were varied. Tau-dot estimates and goodness-of-fit were highly similar across the 3 conditions. Only within-participant variability of tau-dot estimates was increased when environmental cues were removed. That finding suggests that the motor system uses a tau-dot strategy involving the intermodal (i.e., visual, proprioceptive, or both) specification of information to regulate the decelerative phase of reaching under restricted viewing conditions. The authors provide recommendations for improving the derivation of $$ x estimates and stress the need for further research on how time-to-contact information is used in the regulation of the dynamics of actions such as reaching.

U2 - 10.3200/JMBR.36.1.3-12

DO - 10.3200/JMBR.36.1.3-12

M3 - Journal article

VL - 36

SP - 3

EP - 12

JO - Journal of Motor Behavior

JF - Journal of Motor Behavior

SN - 0022-2895

IS - 1

ER -