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Goal-related planning constraints in bimanual grasping and placing of objects

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Abstract

Our primary objective was to examine the possible interplay of the end-state comfort effect and bimanual temporal and spatial coupling constraints in a grasp-to-place task. Unimanual and bimanual grasping and placing tasks were employed with manipulations on initial comfort (by use of potentially interfering obstacles) and target goals (using various demands on end goal object orientations). Confirming previous temporal findings, incongruent bimanual tasks were considerably slower in initiation time and movement time than congruent ones, reflecting costs in conceptualizing, planning, and completion of the task. With respect to spatial constraints, when the same goal was present for both hands there was strong evidence of the influence of both end-state comfort and bimanual constraints. This was often not the case when the task demands differed for the two hands, although the primary task goals were still attained. We suggest that the implementation of constraints is not based on a strict hierarchy; rather, certain constraints become dominant depending on the task and situation.

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Notes

  1. While using an actual drinking cup or glass would have increased the ecological validity of the tasks, it may have biased subjects to act in a manner consistent with end-state comfort.

  2. We realize that having only one cylinder displayed on the cue card in unimanual trials and two present in bimanual trials introduces higher demands on processing and interpreting the additional stimulus in the bimanual case (which would be expected to increase IT compared to the unimanual case). Indeed it is difficult to avoid this problem; importantly however, results suggest that number of cylinders displayed on the cue card alone cannot account for our primary effects.

  3. In addition to standard statistical reporting we provide R 2 values were appropriate. R 2 can be interpreted as the proportion of response variation explained by a variable of interest (Draper and Smith 1998).

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Acknowledgments

We are grateful for the funding from an Otago Research Grant to E.A.F for portions of this project. We thank Alex Sebastian for help in coding the videotaped data.

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Correspondence to Elizabeth A. Franz.

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Hughes, C.M.L., Franz, E.A. Goal-related planning constraints in bimanual grasping and placing of objects. Exp Brain Res 188, 541–550 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00221-008-1387-8

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