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When Intercepting Moving Targets, Mid-Movement Error Corrections Reflect Distinct Responses To Visual And Haptic Perturbations, Pablo Gonzalez Polanco, Leigh A. Mrotek, Kristy A. Nielson, Scott A. Beardsley, Robert A. Scheidt

Biomedical Engineering Faculty Research and Publications

We examined a key aspect of sensorimotor skill: the capability to correct performance errors that arise mid-movement. Participants grasped the handle of a robot that imposed a nominal viscous resistance to hand movement. They watched a target move pseudo-randomly just above the horizontal plane of hand motion and initiated quick interception movements when cued. On some trials, the robot's viscosity or the target's speed changed without warning coincident with the GO cue. We fit a sum-of-Gaussians model to mechanical power measured at the handle to determine the number, magnitude, and relative timing of submovements occurring in each interception attempt. When …