A stone's throw and its launch window: Timing precision and its implications for language and hominid brains

Calvin, William H.

doi:10.1016/0022-5193(83)90405-8

Cited by 265 publications

(106 citation statements)

References 35 publications

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“…In addition, higher conduction speed allows more time to integrate multiple sensors or make more sophisticated calculations before deciding on a response. In neuronal processing, 'microseconds matter' (Carr and MacLeod, 2010), as precision in those microseconds is essential for sensory localization and accurate motor control (Calvin, 1983;Hager and Kirchner, 2014). Myelin is an innovation capable of precision-tuning of microsecond-scale timing (Seidl et al, 2010).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Escapes in copepods: comparison between myelinate and amyelinate species

Buskey

Strickler

Bradley

et al. 2017

Journal of Experimental Biology

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Rapid conduction in myelinated nerves keeps distant parts of large organisms in timely communication. It is thus surprising to find myelination in some very small organisms. Calanoid copepods, while sharing similar body plans, are evenly divided between myelinate and amyelinate taxa. In seeking the selective advantage of myelin in these small animals, representatives from both taxa were subjected to a brief hydrodynamic stimulus that elicited an escape response. The copepods differed significantly in their ability to localize the stimulus: amyelinate copepods escaped in the general direction of their original swim orientation, often ending up closer to the stimulus. However, myelinate species turned away from the stimulus and distanced themselves from it, irrespective of their original orientation. We suggest that faster impulse conduction of myelinated axons leads to better precision in the timing and processing of sensory information, thus allowing myelinate copepods to better localize stimuli and respond appropriately.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Escapes in copepods: comparison between myelinate and amyelinate species

Buskey

Strickler

Bradley

et al. 2017

Journal of Experimental Biology

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“…In this celebrated 'uniquely human' maneuver, precise temporal control of the release of the projectile is the key to the ability to forcefully hit distant targets (e.g. Calvin, 1983;Bingham, 1999;Schoenemann, 2006;Gerullis and Schuster, 2014). The findings available so far show that archerfish do modify their water jets in a task-dependent manner and justify the notion that archerfish use their jets as tools.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 98%

Archerfish use their shooting technique to produce adaptive underwater jets

Dewenter

Gerullis

Hecker

et al. 2017

Journal of Experimental Biology

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Archerfish are renowned for dislodging aerial prey using well-aimed shots of water. Recently it has been shown that these fish can shape their aerial jets by adjusting the dynamics of their mouth opening and closing. This allows the fish to adjust their jet to target distance so that they can forcefully hit prey over considerable distances. Here, we suggest that archerfish use the same technique to also actively control jets under water. Fired from close range, the underwater jets are powerful enough to lift up buried food particles, which the fish then can pick up. We trained fish so that we could monitor their mouth opening and closing maneuvers during underwater shooting and compare them with those employed in aerial shooting. Our analysis suggests that the fish use the same dynamic mechanism to produce aerial and underwater jets and that they employ the same basic technique to adjust their jets in both conditions. When food is buried in substrate that consists of large particles, the fish use a brief pulse, but they use a longer one when the substrate is more fine-grained. These findings extend the notion that archerfish can flexibly shape their jets to be appropriate in different contexts and suggest that archerfish shooting might have been shaped both by constraints in aerial and underwater shooting.

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“…In keeping with this, it might be expected that throwing inaccuracy would be caused by lack of precision in the timing of the central command to the fingers. Such evidence has been found in overarm ball throwing, where modeling and experimental studies have shown that ball high/ low inaccuracy could be caused by variability in the timing of finger opening on the handpath (Calvin 1983a(Calvin , 1983bChowdhary and Challis 1999;Hore et al 1996). However, in dart throwing, inaccuracy has been associated with errors in hand trajectory speed (Smeets et al 2002).…”

mentioning

confidence: 89%

Skilled throwers use physics to time ball release to the nearest millisecond

Hore

Watts

2011

Journal of Neurophysiology

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Hore J, Watts S. Skilled throwers use physics to time ball release to the nearest millisecond. J Neurophysiol 106: 2024 -2033, 2011. First published July 20, 2011 doi:10.1152/jn.00059.2011.-Skilled throwers achieve accuracy in overarm throwing by releasing the ball on the handpath with a timing precision as low as 1 ms. It is generally believed that this remarkable ability results from a precisely timed command from the brain that opens the fingers. Alternatively, precise timing of ball release could result from a backforce from the ball that pushes the fingers open. The objective was to test these hypotheses in skilled throwers. Angular positions of the hand and phalanges of the middle finger were recorded with the search-coil technique. In support of the backforce hypothesis, we found that when subjects made a throwing motion without a ball in the hand (i.e., without a backforce), they could not open the fingers rapidly, and they had lost the ability to time finger opening in the 1-to 2-ms range. In addition, relationships were found between the magnitude and timing of hand angular acceleration and finger (joint) extension acceleration. The results indicate that although a central command produced initial hand opening, precise timing of ball release came from a mechanism involving Newtonian mechanics, i.e., hand acceleration produced a backforce from the ball on the fingers that pushed the fingers open. In this mechanism, given the appropriate finger force/stiffness, correction for errors in hand acceleration occurs automatically because hand motion causes finger motion. We propose that skilled throwers achieve ball accuracy by computing finger force/stiffness based on state estimation of hand acceleration and that ball inaccuracy occurs when this computation is imprecise.

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A stone's throw and its launch window: Timing precision and its implications for language and hominid brains

Cited by 265 publications

References 35 publications

Escapes in copepods: comparison between myelinate and amyelinate species

Escapes in copepods: comparison between myelinate and amyelinate species

Archerfish use their shooting technique to produce adaptive underwater jets

Skilled throwers use physics to time ball release to the nearest millisecond

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