Manual preferences for visually- and haptically-guided grasping

The contributions of vision and haptics to reaching and grasping

“…In Stone and Gonzalez (2015b) , children were asked to complete the task with and without vision (i.e., while blindfolded). Results showed a marked decrease in right-hand use when vision was unavailable that was comparable to that seen in adults ( Stone and Gonzalez, 2015a ). This result emphasizes the role that vision plays in right- hand preference for grasping in childhood.…”

“…If haptics is a specialization of the left hand, then in the absence of that sense, one would resort to using the right hand because as argued in the previous section, when grasping with vision the right hand is preferred for grasping. Consistent with this speculation, a recent study found that constraining haptics (i.e., by asking participants to wear a pair of textured, fitted gloves; see Figure 1B ) during a grasping task, results in a decrease of left-hand use to the point that the right hand is used almost exclusively ( Stone and Gonzalez, 2015a ; see Figure 1D ).…”

“…One possibility is that handedness plays a role. However, numerous studies have shown that left-handers are not the mirror image of right-handers and in fact, as a population left-handers do not show a hand preference for grasping in some studies ( Mamolo et al, 2005 ; Bryden et al, 2011 ; Stone et al, 2013 ; Main and Carey, 2014 ; Stone and Gonzalez, 2015a ). Moreover, hand preference remained unchanged for left-handers in response to the visual and haptic manipulations in Stone and Gonzalez (2015b) .…”

“… Experimental set-up and results from Stone and Gonzalez (2014a , b , 2015a , b ). Photographs of participants completing (A) the Vision/Haptics condition (B) the Vision/Constrained-Haptics condition (note that the participant is wearing a pair of gloves) and (C) the No Vision/Haptics condition (note that the participant is wearing a blindfold) (D) Graph demonstrating right-hand use for grasping in percentage for the three sensory conditions in children and adults.…”

“…In the only study (to our knowledge) that has investigated how vision and haptics modulate hand preference for grasping, right- and left-handed adults were asked to complete the block-building task under four conditions: Vision/Haptics, No Vision/Haptics, Vision/Constrained Haptics, No Vision/Constrained Haptics ( Stone and Gonzalez, 2015a ). In the No Vision conditions participants wore a blindfold and in the Constrained Haptics they wore a pair of textured, fitted gloves (see Figure 1B ).…”