Vision-to-event and movement-to-event coordination in an unimanual circling task

Abstract

Coordination of actions with events in extracorporeal space is essential for many everyday tasks. In the present study, we investigated how transformations, like in tool use, and varying the spatial context affect action coordination. For this aim, we used a circling task that required participants to coordinate the visual feedback of hand movements with a clockwise circling stimulus (event). The trajectories of stimulus and visual feedback were presented horizontally aligned (group horizontal), within each other (group interleaved) or vertically aligned (group vertical). Within groups, we varied the instructed rotation direction of stimulus and visual feedback (same and different), and y-direction of visual feedback relative to the stimulus (same and different). To dissociate movements and the associated proprioceptive/kinesthetic feedback from visual movement feedback, participants performed the tasks under regular and transformed visual feedback (180° angular shift). Results indicated that action coordination follows the principle of vision-to-event coordination (similar data patterns with regular and transformed feedback), but subtle effects of movement-to-event coordination were also observed (larger difference in performance between same y-direction and different y-direction conditions with regular than with transformed feedback). The presence of a transformation affected performance negatively. The different visual layouts affected the different conditions differentially, pointing to the importance of the visual context. In conclusion, vision-to-event coordination dominates unimanual action coordination. The quality of performance is influenced by perceptual processes based on differential processing of the horizontal and vertical axis, and based on Gestalt principles.

Effects of angular shift transformations between movements and their visual feedback on coordination in unimanual circling

“…Research on bimanual coordination (i.e., the coordination of the two hands) has also included tasks without discrete structuring events, like circling (e.g., Swinnen et al, 1997; Mechsner et al, 2001; Tomatsu and Ohtsuki, 2005). Unimanual coordination of continuous movements in tasks without structuring events has rarely been investigated, and little is known how tool transformations affect coordination in such tasks (but see Dietrich et al, 2012; Rieger et al, 2014). Specifically, to the best of our knowledge it has not been investigated how the magnitude of an angular shift transformation between a movement and its visual feedback in the environment affects coordination performance in circling movements.…”

“…As there can be no motor constraints related to the second hand moving, unimanual coordination depends on the perceptual characteristics of the movement feedback of the moving hand, which can be either visual and/or proprioceptive/kinesthetic. Studies indicate that coordination is predominantly governed by visual feedback in many situations (Buekers et al, 2000; Roerdink et al, 2005; Dietrich et al, 2012), even though proprioception/kinesthesis must also be taken into account (Wilson et al, 2005a,b; Dietrich et al, 2012). It also depends on the type of task whether visual or kinesthetic/proprioceptive information is more beneficial for unimanual coordination (Alaerts et al, 2007).…”

“…In a task similar to the one we used in the present study participants were asked to coordinate the visual feedback of a circular hand movement with a circling stimulus in order to produce different visual patterns on the screen (Dietrich et al, 2012). Those visual patterns consisted of visual feedback and stimulus rotating in same or different directions and moving in same or different y-directions.…”

“…However, in contrast to Dietrich et al (2012) we used a wider range of angular shift transformations between movements and the visual feedback on the screen, in order to disentangle effects of the presence of a transformation and the magnitude of a transformation on performance. Participants were asked to coordinate a visual feedback dot (produced by the participants’ movement and presented on the right side of a screen) with a continuously circling stimulus dot (presented on the left side of the screen).…”

Coordination in Fast Repetitive Violin-Bowing Patterns

“…Several studies have demonstrated the influence of visual information (in the form of a stimulus, or visual feedback) on the stability or other qualities of coordination [82], [83], and on the ability to learn unusual coordination patterns involving phase shifts [25], [32], [34], [84], [85], specific frequency ratios [35], or both [33]. In case of violin bowing, the primary source of feedback is the sound of the instrument, which has a direct relationship with the performer's action in a complex and nonlinear manner [6]–[10].…”