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Preferential Reaching and End-State Comfort: How Task Demands Influence Motor Planning
Danielle Salters1, P Camila Rios1, Eliza Ramsay1
1Department of Kinesiology, University of Windsor, Windsor, Ontario, Canada.
Journal of Motor Behavior
|December 17, 2020
Summary
Object properties like location, size, and orientation affect hand choice and end-state comfort during reaching tasks. Non-preferred hand use increases to achieve comfort when objects are oriented away from the dominant hand.
Area of Science:
- Motor control and biomechanics
- Human factors and ergonomics
- Neuroscience of movement
Background:
- Reaching and grasping movements are influenced by factors such as hand preference and object characteristics.
- End-state comfort (ESC) is a key consideration in motor planning, sometimes overriding hand preference, especially at the body midline.
- Understanding these influences is crucial for fields ranging from robotics to rehabilitation.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate how object location, size, and orientation impact hand selection and end-state comfort (ESC) during reach-to-grasp tasks.
- To determine if ESC influences hand choice differently based on object type (dowel, mallet, cup).
- To explore the interplay between preferential hand use and ESC under varied task demands.
Main Methods:
- Fifty participants (average age 20.83) performed three preferential reaching tasks involving objects of different properties.
- Object properties manipulated included location in hemispace, size (for cups), and orientation (for mallets and dowels).
- Hand selection and the achievement of end-state comfort were systematically recorded.
Main Results:
- Object location significantly influenced hand selection across all tasks.
- Object size (cups) and orientation (mallets) also affected hand choice.
- End-state comfort was influenced by object location and orientation, particularly for dowels and mallets.
- Increased use of the non-preferred hand was observed to achieve ESC when objects were oriented away from the preferred hand.
Conclusions:
- Object properties, including location, size, and orientation, play a significant role in modulating hand selection and end-state comfort during reaching tasks.
- The principle of end-state comfort can lead to the use of the non-preferred hand to optimize the final grasp posture.
- These findings enhance our understanding of motor control strategies and the factors governing preferential reaching behaviors.
