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Pantomime-grasping: the ‘return’ of haptic feedback supports the absolute specification of object size

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Abstract

When an individual grasps a physical object, the visuomotor system is able to specify grip aperture via absolute visual information. In contrast, grasping to a location previously occupied by an object (i.e., pantomime-grasping) results in the specification of grip aperture via relative visual information. The basis for the dissociable visual codes is thought to reflect that pantomime-grasping is a perception-based task. It is, however, important to recognize that grasping a physical object and pantomime-grasping differ not only in terms of their visuospatial properties but also with respect to the availability of haptic feedback: Grasping a physical object provides haptic cues derived from touching the object, whereas no such feedback is available in a traditional pantomime-grasping task. As such, we examined whether haptic feedback influences the information supporting a pantomime-grasp performed after a 1000-ms visual delay. Participants completed responses in each of the three tasks: (1) grasping a physical object, (2) traditional pantomime-grasping wherein the to-be-grasped object was removed from the grasping environment and (3) pantomime-grasping wherein the experimenter placed the object between participants’ thumb and forefinger once they had completed their response (i.e., pantomime-grasping with haptic feedback). Just-noticeable-difference (JND) scores were computed to determine whether responses adhered to or violated the psychophysical (i.e., relative) principles of Weber’s law. JNDs for the traditional pantomime-grasping task adhered to Weber’s law, whereas JNDs for grasping a physical object and for pantomime-grasping with haptic feedback violated the law. Thus, we propose that convergent visual and haptic cues support the absolute specification of object size in a pantomime-grasping task. Furthermore, our results highlight the important role of multisensory cue integration in a target-defined grasping task.

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Notes

  1. Ganel et al. (2008a) employed manual estimation and method of adjustment tasks. Results for both showed adherence to Weber’s law (see also Davarpanah Jazi and Heath 2014).

  2. Smeets and Brenner (2008) contend that grasping violates Weber’s law because the visuomotor system computes grasp points rather than the size (or magnitude) of a to-be-grasped object. It is, however, important to note that pantomime-grasping (Holmes et al. 2013) and grasping a 2D object (Holmes and Heath 2013) violate Weber’s law—a result providing some evidence that the size of a target object is used to specify grip aperture. As such, the position adopted in the present study is that target size information is used, in part, to specify grasping. Of course, we recognize the basis of Smeets and Brenner’s comments and therefore direct the reader to the aforementioned authors’ target article (Smeets and Brenner 1999) that provides a lively debate and outline of the divergent views regarding whether object size or grasp point information supports aperture shaping.

  3. DF is an extensively studied individual with bilateral lesions to her lateral occipital cortex (James et al. 2003). As a result of her lesions, DF has a persistent deficit in visual form perception but demonstrates preserved visuomotor abilities. DF’s preserved visuomotor abilities have been attributed to her intact dorsal visual pathway (for recent review see Goodale and Milner 2013).

  4. Mechanoreceptor-derived (i.e., tactile) cues associated with touching an object or the surface on which it rests serve as an additional source of haptic feedback. In previous work (Davarpanah Jazi and Heath 2014; Davarpanah Jazi et al. 2015) as well as the current study, we note that such cues do not influence the nature of the information mediating visually or tactile-defined grasping (but see Whitwell et al. 2014). Instead, our work demonstrates that the proprioceptive component of haptic feedback supports the absolute specification of object size.

  5. For the PH+ condition, we examined whether the size of the target object on trial N-1 influenced PGA or JND values for a current trial (i.e., trial N)—an approach matching a number of pro- and antisaccade task-switching experiments performed by our group (e.g., DeSimone et al. 2014; Weiler and Heath 2014). Results showed that preceding target object size did not influence PGAs or JNDs for a current trial (Fs < 1).

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Acknowledgments

This study was supported by a Discovery Grant from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada and Faculty Scholar and Academic Development Fund Awards from the University of Western Ontario.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Kinesiology, The University of Western Ontario, London, ON, Canada

    Shirin Davarpanah Jazi, Michelle Yau & Matthew Heath

  2. School of Health and Human Performance, Dalhousie University, London, ON, Canada

    David A. Westwood

  3. Graduate Program in Neuroscience, The University of Western Ontario, London, ON, N6A 3K7, Canada

    Matthew Heath

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  1. Shirin Davarpanah Jazi
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  2. Michelle Yau
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  3. David A. Westwood
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  4. Matthew Heath
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Correspondence to Matthew Heath.

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Davarpanah Jazi, S., Yau, M., Westwood, D.A. et al. Pantomime-grasping: the ‘return’ of haptic feedback supports the absolute specification of object size. Exp Brain Res 233, 2029–2040 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00221-015-4274-0

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