Human hand moves proactively to the external stimulus: an evolutional strategy for minimizing transient error

Phys Rev Lett. 2004 Oct 15;93(16):168105. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.93.168105. Epub 2004 Oct 15.

Abstract

We investigated particularly the proactive nature of the visual-motor system by steady and transient experiments of a hand-tracking task, and confirmed that the hand motion precedes on the average the target motion in steady runs within a finite frequency range of the sinusoidal target motion. The question why and how much the hand motion should precede was answered by frequency-jump experiments. The results implied that the positive phase shift of the hand motion represents the proactive nature of the visual-motor control system which is adaptationally developed for each person to minimize the transient error of the hand motion when the target motion changes unexpectedly.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Adult
  • Biological Evolution
  • Hand / physiology*
  • Humans
  • Male
  • Movement / physiology*
  • Psychomotor Performance / physiology*