Human force control may trade-off force error with central tendency and recency biases.

Area of Science:

• Sensorimotor control
• Human motor behavior
• Computational neuroscience

Background:

• Understanding human force control is crucial for insights into sensorimotor control and movement behaviors.
• The nervous system's handling of competing control criteria, like accuracy and energetic cost, remains incompletely understood.
• Investigating objective function components in motor control provides a framework for analyzing human performance.

Approach:

• Isometric force tracking experiments with visual feedback were conducted.
• Participants tracked step changes in target forces to analyze control strategies.
• Experimental design aimed to differentiate between various potential objective function components.

Key Points:

• Force tracking error was primarily explained by a balance between error reduction and specific force biases.
• Effort-saving tendencies were not required to model the observed force control behavior.
• Central tendency bias and recency bias were essential for explaining experimental observations.
• The absence of these biases when force requirements were removed suggests they are task-specific.

Conclusions:

• Human force control is influenced by a complex interplay of accuracy and cognitive biases.
• Central tendency and recency biases play significant roles in motor execution, particularly in tasks with specific force demands.
• These findings contribute to understanding perceptual and behavioral biases in human perception and motor control.