Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

The Role Of Vision In Detecting And Correcting Fingertip Force Errors During Object Lifting, Gavin Buckingham, Nathalie Ranger, Melvyn Goodale

Gavin Buckingham

Vision provides many reliable cues about the likely weight of an object, allowing individuals to predict how heavy it will be. The forces used to lift an object for the first time reflect these predictions. This, however, leads to inevitable errors during lifts of objects that weigh unexpected amounts. Fortunately, these errors are rarely made twice in a row-lifters have the impressive ability to detect and correct large or small misapplications of fingertip forces, even while experiencing weight illusions. Although it has been assumed that we detect and correct these errors exclusively with our sense of touch, recent evidence has …

Learning From Mistakes: Improving Initial Fingertip Force Scaling By Observing Lifting Errors, Gavin Buckingham, Minnie Tang, Paul Gribble, Melvyn Goodale

Gavin Buckingham

• When lifting objects that are lighter or heaver than we expect them to be, individuals typically misapply forces in a way that reflects their prior expectations of heaviness.

• Because we lift in this predictive way, large and small cubes elicit these characteristic errors even when they are adjusted to have equal mass. Lifters will apply too much force to a large cube and substantially less force to a small cube – errors that are rapidly corrected with repeated lifts (Flanagan & Beltzner, 2000).

• When watching others lift objects, an observer’s motor system automatically reacts in a way …

Gating Of Vibrotactile Detection During Visually Guided Bimanual Reaches, Gavin Buckingham, David Carey, Francisco Colino, John Degrosbois, Gordon Binsted

Gavin Buckingham

It is far more difficult to detect a small tactile stimulation on a finger that is moving compared to when it is static. This suppression of tactile information during motion, known as tactile gating, has been examined in some detail during single-joint movements. However, the existence and time course of this gating has yet to be examined during visually guided multi-joint reaches, where sensory feedback may be paramount. The current study demonstrated that neurologically intact humans are unable to detect a small vibratory stimulus on one of their index fingers during a bimanual reach toward visual targets. By parametrically altering …