The stability of rhythmic movement coordination depends on relative speed: the Bingham model supported

Abstract

Following many studies showing that the coupling in bimanual coordination can be perceptual, Bingham (Ecol Psychol in 16:45-53, 2001; 2004a, b) proposed a dynamical model of such movements. The model contains three key hypotheses: (1) Being able to produce stable coordinative movements is a function of the ability to perceive relative phase, (2) the information to perceive relative phase is relative direction of motion, and (3) the ability to resolve this information is conditioned by relative speed. The first two hypotheses have been well supported (Wilson and Bingham in Percept Psychophys 70:465-476, 2008; Wilson et al. in J Exp Psychol Hum 36:1508-1514, 2010a), but the third was not supported when tested by de Rugy et al. (Exp Brain Res 184:269-273, 2008) using a visual coordination task that required simultaneous control of both the amplitude and relative phase of movement. The purposes of the current study were to replicate this task with additional measures and to modify the original model to apply it to the new task. To do this, we conducted two experiments. First, we tested the ability to produce 180° visual coordination at different frequencies to determine frequencies suitable for testing in the de Rugy et al. task. Second, we tested the de Rugy et al. task but included additional measures that yielded results different from those reported by de Rugy et al. These results were used to elaborate the original model. First, one of the phase-driven oscillators was replaced with a harmonic oscillator, so the resulting coupling was unidirectional. This change resulted in the model producing less stable 180° coordination behavior beyond 1.5 Hz consistent with the results obtained in Experiment 1. Next, amplitude control and phase correction elements were added to the model. With these changes, the model reproduced behaviors observed in Experiment 2. The central finding was that the stability of rhythmic movement coordination does depend on relative speed and, thus, all three of the hypotheses contained in the original Bingham model are supported.

Transfer of learning between unimanual and bimanual rhythmic movement coordination: transfer is a function of the task dynamic

“…Kelso et al 1986;Kelso et al 1987). Simulations of the unimanual model showed that 180° movements only remained stable up to ≈1.5 Hz, again matching the empirical data (Snapp-Childs et al 2011). Other than this, the unimanual model produces all the same coordination phenomena as the bimanual model.…”

“…Finally, Snapp-Childs et al (2011) showed in model simulations and confirmed with data that performance in the uni-manual tasks is inherently less stable than in the bi-manual tasks because the coupling is uni-directional instead of bi-directional. Thus, we must expect the level of improvement in performance, after equivalent amounts of training, to be less in the unimanual task than in the bi-manual task.…”

“…Both bimanual and unimanual versions of this general type of task have been modelled using a perception-action task dynamic in which the movements are perceptually coupled (e.g. Snapp-Childs et al, 2011). In addition, previous studies have shown that novel patterns of coordination, i.e.…”

“…Learning a novel coordination pattern entails perceptual learning of new information that specifies the coordination and the learning only transfers to a symmetry partner or a novel limb combination because the relevant information is the same. In the unimanual and bimanual versions of the tasks, the information remains the same (even though the coupling functions are uni-and bi-directional, respectively) so these are, therefore, treated as examples of nearly (but obviously not entirely) the same task dynamic (Snapp-Childs et al 2011). Our previous work (Wilson et al 2005a(Wilson et al , b, 2010a has assumed this to be this case, but we have never tested it empirically.…”

Influence of stimulus velocity profile on rhythmic visuomotor coordination.

“…Indeed, they have shown that the information that can be used to control rhythmic visuomotor coordination is the relative direction between the observed and produced movements and that the detection of this information depends on the relative speed between these two movements that acts as noise (Bingham, 2004a(Bingham, , 2004bSnapp-Childs et al, 2011;Wilson et al, 2005a;Wilson, Collins, & Bingham, 2005b). When performing an in-phase or antiphase coordination, the relative direction does not change (always the same and always different at 0°and 180°, respectively), but antiphase coordination is less stable because the relative speed ranges from zero to maximally different, which degrades the detection of the relative direction information.…”