Three dimensional arm trajectories

Planar arm trajectories are characterized by a segmentation of the hand velocity profile and by a coupling between shape and speed. The question addressed in this paper is whether such coupling, observed in two dimensions, still holds in three dimensions. This matter was investigated experimentally by recording three dimensional "aimless" movements of the arm, particularly three dimensional scribbles, and the answer suggested by the experimental data is that only the "bending" of the trajectory is coupled with speed, whereas the "twisting" is independent of speed. The same behaviour was also found to characterize a computational model of trajectory formation which is based on the spatial composition of chains of planar strokes, overlapped in time.