Influence of mechanical load on sequential effects

Schütz, Christoph; Schack, Thomas

doi:10.1007/s00221-013-3576-3

Cited by 15 publications

(32 citation statements)

References 32 publications

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“…These models determined hand choice based on the lowest biomechanical costs but differed in their assumptions about future body acceleration when the cost computations were performed. These models, accounting for hand choice based on biomechanical cost functions, cannot be taken to suggest that no other cost functions play a role in this form of decision making, such as, for example, cognitive costs (Schütz and Schack 2013).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Decisions in motion: passive body acceleration modulates hand choice

Bakker

Weijer

Beers

et al. 2017

Journal of Neurophysiology

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In everyday life, we frequently have to decide which hand to use for a certain action. It has been suggested that for this decision the brain calculates expected costs based on action values, such as expected biomechanical costs, expected success rate, handedness, and skillfulness. Although these conclusions were based on experiments in stationary subjects, we often act while the body is in motion. We investigated how hand choice is affected by passive body motion, which directly affects the biomechanical costs of the arm movement due to its inertia. With the use of a linear motion platform, 12 right-handed subjects were sinusoidally translated (0.625 and 0.5 Hz). At 8 possible motion phases, they had to reach, using either their left or right hand, to a target presented at 1 of 11 possible locations. We predicted hand choice by calculating the expected biomechanical costs under different assumptions about the future acceleration involved in these computations, being the forthcoming acceleration during the reach, the instantaneous acceleration at target onset, or zero acceleration as if the body were stationary. Although hand choice was generally biased to use of the dominant hand, it also modulated sinusoidally with the motion, with the amplitude of the bias depending on the motion's peak acceleration. The phase of hand choice modulation was consistent with the cost model that took the instantaneous acceleration signal at target onset. This suggests that the brain relies on the bottom-up acceleration signals, and not on predictions about future accelerations, when deciding on hand choice during passive whole body motion. Decisions of hand choice are a fundamental aspect of human behavior. Whereas these decisions are typically studied in stationary subjects, this study examines hand choice while subjects are in motion. We show that accelerations of the body, which differentially modulate the biomechanical costs of left and right hand movements, are also taken into account when deciding which hand to use for a reach, possibly based on bottom-up processing of the otolith signal.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Decisions in motion: passive body acceleration modulates hand choice

Bakker

Weijer

Beers

et al. 2017

Journal of Neurophysiology

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“…This cognitive cost becomes visible when participants carry out repetitive tasks. When opening a series of drawers with cylindrical handles, participants persist in their previous posture, i.e., a more pronated posture in a descending and a more supinated posture in an ascending sequence (Schütz and Schack 2013;Schütz et al 2011).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Shifts of the point-of-change can be attributed to a lower mechanical cost of motor execution

Schütz

Schack

2020

Exp Brain Res

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In a previous study on hand selection in a sequential reaching task, the authors showed a shift of the point-of-change (POC) to the left of the midline. This implies that participants conducted a number of contralateral reaches with their dominant, right hand. Contralateral movements have longer planning and execution times and a lower precision. In the current study, we asked whether lower mechanical costs of motor execution or lower cognitive costs of motor planning compensated for these disadvantages. Theories on hemispheric differences postulate lower mechanical costs in the dominant hemisphere and lower cognitive costs in the left hemisphere (independent of handedness). In right-handed participants, both factors act agonistically to reduce the total cost of right-handed reaches. To distinguish between the cost factors, we had left-and right-hand-dominant participants execute a sequential, unimanual reaching task. Results showed a left-shift of the POC in the right-handed and a right-shift in the left-handed group. Both shifts were similar in magnitude. These findings indicate that only the mechanical cost of motor execution compensates for the disadvantages of the contralateral reaches, while the cognitive cost of motor planning is irrelevant for the POC shift.

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“…The study of Cohen and Rosenbaum (2004) also demonstrated that action planning is not only influenced by upcoming task demands, but also by previously performed actions (see also Rosenbaum and Jorgensen, 1992 ; Jax and Rosenbaum, 2007 ; van der Wel et al, 2007 ; Weigelt et al, 2009 ; Schütz et al, 2011 ; Schütz and Schack, 2013 ). Specifically, after participants had placed the plunger at the target platform, they lowered their arm, and then transported the plunger back to the home platform (target-back-to-home moves).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 90%

Observing end-state comfort favorable actions does not modulate action plan recall

Seegelke

2015

Front. Psychol.

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A large corpus of work demonstrates that observing other people’s actions activates corresponding motor representations in the observer by running an internal simulation of the observed action. Recent evidence suggests that recalled action plans reflect a plan of how the observer would execute that action (based on the specific motor representation) rather than a plan of the actually observed action (based on the visual representation). This study examined whether people would recall an action plan based on a visual representation if the observed movement is biomechanically favorable for their own subsequent action. Participants performed an object manipulation task alongside a confederate. In the intra-individual task, the participant (or confederate) transported a plunger from an outer platform of fixed height to a center target platform located at different heights (home-to-target move), and then the same person transported the plunger back to the outer platform (target-back-to-home move). In the inter-individual task, the sequence was split between the two persons such that the participant (or confederate) performed the home-to-target move and the other person performed the target-back-to-home move. Importantly, the confederate always grasped the plunger at the same height. This grasp height was designated such that if participants would copy the action (i.e., grasp the object at the same height) it would place the participant’s arm in a comfortable position at the end of the target-back-to-home move (i.e., end-state comfort). Results show that participants’ grasp height was inversely related to center target height and similar regardless of direction (home-to-target vs. target-back-to-home move) and task (intra- vs. inter-individual). In addition, during the inter-individual task, participant’s target-back-to-home grasp height was correlated with their own, but not with the confederate’s grasp height during the home-to-target moves. These findings provide evidence that observing actions that are biomechanically favorable for subsequent action execution does not influence action plan recall processes.

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Influence of mechanical load on sequential effects

Cited by 15 publications

References 32 publications

Decisions in motion: passive body acceleration modulates hand choice

Decisions in motion: passive body acceleration modulates hand choice

Shifts of the point-of-change can be attributed to a lower mechanical cost of motor execution

Observing end-state comfort favorable actions does not modulate action plan recall

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