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Updated: May 24, 2026

Efficiently Recording the Eye-Hand Coordination to Incoordination Spectrum
Published on: March 21, 2019
Eye-hand coordination when the body moves: dynamic egocentric and exocentric sensory encoding
Michele Tagliabue1, Joseph McIntyre
1Centre d'Etude de la Sensorimotricité (CESeM UMR 8194), Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique and Institut des Neurosciences et de la Cognition, Université Paris Descartes, Sorbonne Paris Cité, Paris, France. michele.tagliabue@parisdescartes.fr
The human brain uses both self-centered (egocentric) and external reference frames to represent object orientation. The brain prioritizes sensory information that best integrates with its internal representations during movement.
Area of Science:
- Neuroscience
- Motor Control
- Human Perception
Background:
- The brain's representation of object orientation is crucial for motor control.
- Previous research suggested simultaneous use of visual and kinesthetic representations.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate whether the human brain uses egocentric or external frames of reference for object orientation.
- To analyze response variability under sensory conflict to distinguish between egocentric and exocentric encoding.
Main Methods:
- Analysis of response variability in a reach-to-grasp task with sensory conflict.
- Examining the impact of head rotation amplitude on response variability.
- Assessing how sensory conflict influences error accumulation in different representational frames.
Main Results:
- Response variability increased with head rotation amplitude, indicating egocentric representation errors.
- The brain selectively uses head movement information based on the retained egocentric representation (visual or kinesthetic).
- Sensory information that integrates easily with internal representations is prioritized.
Conclusions:
- The human brain employs both egocentric and exocentric internal representations for object orientation.
- These representations coexist independently within visual and kinesthetic sensory modalities.
- The brain dynamically selects sensory information for updating representations based on integration ease.
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