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The intermanual transfer of anticipatory force control in precision grip lifting is not influenced by the perception of weight

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Abstract

Passing objects from one hand to the other occurs frequently in our daily life. What kind of information about the weight of the object is transferred between the holding and lifting hand? To examine this, we asked people to hold (and heft) an object in one hand and then pick it up with the other. The objects were presented in the context of a size–weight illusion: that is, two objects of different sizes but the same weight were used. One group of participants held one of the objects in their left hand and then picked it up with their right. Another group of participants simply picked up the objects from a table. Thus, the former group had on-line information about the weight of the object, whereas the latter did not. Both groups showed a strong and equivalent size–weight illusion throughout the experiment. At the same time, the group that lifted the objects from the hefting hand applied equal grip force to the small and large object right from the start; in contrast, the group lifting the objects from the table, initially applied more grip force to the large than to the small object before eventually applying the same force to both. In two additional groups, a delay period was imposed between the lifting of the first and the second hands. The force parameters employed by these last two groups were virtually identical to those used by the group that lifted the object directly from the other hand. These results suggest that the initial calibration of grip force uses veridical information about the weight of the object provided by the other hand. This veridical information about weight is available on-line and is retained in memory for later access. The perceived weight of the object is basically ignored in forming grasping forces.

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Notes

  1. Data from the right hand (DTABR in Figs. 3–5) were analyzed here.

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Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank Dr. Joern Diedrichsen and two other anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments. The authors are also indebted to Haitao Yang for his technical assistance. This research was supported by grants to M. A. Goodale from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and the Canada Research Chairs Program. E. C. Chang was supported by a grant from the CIHR Strategic Training Program in Vision Health Research.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, CIHR Group on Action and Perception, University of Western Ontario, London, ON, Canada, N5A 6C2

    Erik C. Chang & Melvyn A. Goodale

  2. Department of Psychology and Centre for Neuroscience Studies, Queen’s University, Kingston, ON, Canada, K7L 3N6

    J. Randall Flanagan

  3. Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, National Central University, No. 300, Jhongda Rd, Jhongli City, Taoyuan County, 32001, Taiwan

    Erik C. Chang

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  1. Erik C. Chang
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  2. J. Randall Flanagan
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  3. Melvyn A. Goodale
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Correspondence to Erik C. Chang.

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Chang, E.C., Flanagan, J.R. & Goodale, M.A. The intermanual transfer of anticipatory force control in precision grip lifting is not influenced by the perception of weight. Exp Brain Res 185, 319–329 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00221-007-1156-0

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