Abstract
Object-directed grasping movements are usually adjusted in anticipation of the direction and extent of a subsequent object rotation. Such anticipatory grasp selections have been mostly explained in terms of the kinematics of the arm movement. However, object rotations of different directions and extents also differ in their dynamics and in how the tasks are represented. Here, we examined how the dynamics, the kinematics, and the cognitive representation of an object manipulation affect anticipatory grasp selections. We asked participants to grasp an object and rotate it by different angles and in different directions. To examine the influence of dynamic factors, we varied the object’s weight. To examine the influence of the cognitive task representation, we instructed identical object rotations as either toward-top or away-from-top rotations. While instructed object rotation and cognitive task representation did affect grasp selection over the entire course of the experiment, a rather small effect of object weight only appeared late in the experiment. We suggest that grasp selections are determined on different levels. The representation of the kinematics of the object movement determines grasp selection on a trial-by-trial basis. The effect of object weight affects grasp selection by a slower adaptation process. This result implies that even simple motor acts, such as grasping, can only be understood when cognitive factors, such as the task representation, are taken into account.
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Notes
With grasp selection, we refer to the orientation of the hand and forearm when grasping the object.
If participants were within 3° of the target orientation the message “Ausgezeichnet!!!” (German for “Excellent!!!”) appeared. Within 3°–7.5°, the message “Sehr gut!” (“Very good!”) appeared. Within 7.5°–15°, the text “Gut, aber zu weit links/rechts.” (“Good, but too far to the left/right”) appeared, depending on the direction of the error. If errors exceeded 15°, the text “Fehler” (“error”) was shown. If participants were too slow or did not lift the cylinder, the text “Schneller oder Rad höher anheben” (“Faster or lift cylinder higher”) appeared.
This is supported by the data in two ways. First, at the time of grasping, the yaw (left–right) and pitch (up–down) angle of the forearm with respect to an external coordinate system revealed little variability over the trials of each participant (mean SDyaw = 7.3°, mean SDpitch = 6.6°, for comparison, the mean of the participants’ SD of FOGRASP was 66.4°). Second, on average, the difference between the highest and lowest yaw and pitch angle recorded during each cylinder rotation was 8.9° and 13.9°, respectively. The low variability of the forearms position shows that the forearm was stretched or only slightly flexed when grasping and moving the object, suggesting that FOGRASP reflects mostly pronation and supination of the forearm.
Greenhouse–Geisser corrected p values but uncorrected dfs are reported.
Descriptively, the cylinder presented in the first part tended to be grasped more supine, with the exception of away-from-top trials in blocks 3 + 4, resulting in a marginally significant interactions between weight, group, block (and stimulus type), p = 0.069 (and p = 0.063, respectively). No other effect approached significance, all ps ≥ 0.206.
Δstimulus = 0.5 × [(FOCCW,TOWARD-TOP − FOCCW,AWAY-FROM-TOP) + (FOCW,AWAY-FROM-TOP − FOCW,TOWARD-TOP)]; Δweight = 0.5 × [(FOCCW,HEAVY − FOCCW,LIGHT) + (FOCW,LIGHT − FOCW,HEAVY)]; where FO X,Y denotes FOGRASP averaged over all other factors than implied by X and Y. For examples, FOCCW,TOWARD-TOP refers to the FOGRASP averaged over all counterclockwise target angles and both weights.
MTROTs tended to decrease from the earlier blocks to the later blocks (p = 0.068). The interaction between rotation angle and stimulus type approached significance (p = 0.070). This interaction was neither based on a consistent effect of the rotation direction (p = 0.210) nor amplitude (p = 0.438). The three-way interaction between weight, group, and stimulus trials was modulated marginally by block (p = 0.080). All other effects did not approach significance (all ps ≥ 0.173).
The effect of block approached significance (p = 0.72, all other ps ≥ 0.089).
As our participants were mostly female, these values are likely to underestimate the exerted torques in the task respective the maximum torques our participants would be able to produce.
An inspection of single-trial data revealed that the absence of the effect of stimulus type on FOGRASP cannot be explained by the effect being present in a subset of trials and being subsequently averaged out in the aggregated data.
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Acknowledgments
This work was funded by Grant HE 6710/2-1 of the German Research Foundation (DFG). We thank Michael Herbort, Albrecht Sebald, and Georg Schüssler for technical support and Wladimir Kirsch for helpful discussions.
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The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.
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Herbort, O., Butz, M.V. & Kunde, W. The contribution of cognitive, kinematic, and dynamic factors to anticipatory grasp selection. Exp Brain Res 232, 1677–1688 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00221-014-3849-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00221-014-3849-5