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The influence of reducing intermediate target constraints on grasp posture planning during a three-segment object manipulation task

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Abstract

The present experiment examined the influence of final target position on grasp posture planning during a three-segment object manipulation task in which the required object orientation at the first target position was unconstrained. Participants grasped a cylindrical object from a home position, placed it at an intermediate position in a freely chosen orientation, and subsequently placed it at one of four final target positions. Considerable inter-individual differences in initial grasp selection were observed which also led to differences in final grasp postures. Whereas some participants strongly adjusted their initial grasp postures to the final target orientation, and thus showed a preference for end-state comfort, other participants showed virtually no adjustment in initial grasp postures, hence satisfying initial-state comfort. Interestingly, as intermediate grasp postures were similar regardless of initial grasp adjustment, intermediate-state comfort was prioritized by all participants. These results provide further evidence for the interaction of multiple action selection constraints in grasp posture planning during multi-segment object manipulation tasks. Whereas some constraints may take strict precedence in a given task, other constraints may be more flexible and weighted differently among participants. This differentiated weighting leads to task- and subject-specific constraint hierarchies and is reflected in inter-individual differences in grasp selection.

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Notes

  1. The Woltring filter is commonly used in the analysis of motion capture data and is equivalent to a double Butterworth filter. The benefit to the Woltring filter is that higher-order derivates can be calculated from the analytic derivative of a polynominal spline.

  2. Here, the symbol × is used to denote the cross product of two vectors.

  3. Given that participants were instructed to maintain the initially adopted grasp posture throughout the entire movement sequence, intermediate hand and object orientation angles cannot be assumed to be independent. To account for this interdependency, we initially performed a RM MANOVA on intermediate angels.

  4. Notably, the difference between intermediate object orientation and intermediate hand orientation angle was larger for the −90° and −45° final target positions (difference = 6.8° and 0.4°, respectively) compared to the 45° and 90° target positions (difference = 20.3° and 30.0°, respectively). These differences reflect the generally stronger adjustment in initial grasp postures to the 45° and 90° final targets and are likely to result from biomechanical asymmetries in the range of motion of the arm.

  5. In contrast to single-constraint models (e.g., Hogan 1984; Hogan and Flash 1987; Uno et al. 1989; Harris and Wolpert 1998), an important component of these frameworks is that all possible constraints are included, but differ with respect to their assigned weights.

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Acknowledgments

This research was funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG: EC 277). Christian Seegelke gratefully acknowledges the financial support from Honda Research Institute Europe.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Neurocognition and Action Research Group, Faculty of Psychology and Sport Sciences, Bielefeld University, 33501, Bielefeld, Germany

    Christian Seegelke & Thomas Schack

  2. Research Institute for Cognition and Robotics (CoR-Lab), 33501, Bielefeld, Germany

    Christian Seegelke & Thomas Schack

  3. Center of Excellence Cognitive Interaction Technology (CITEC), 33501, Bielefeld, Germany

    Christian Seegelke & Thomas Schack

  4. Robotics Research Centre, School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, 639798, Singapore

    Charmayne M. L. Hughes

  5. Honda Research Institute Europe (HRI-EU), 63073, Offenbach, Germany

    Andreas Knoblauch

  6. Faculty of Engineering, University of Applied Sciences Albstadt-Sigmaringen, 72458, Albstadt-Ebingen, Germany

    Andreas Knoblauch

Authors
  1. Christian Seegelke
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  2. Charmayne M. L. Hughes
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  3. Andreas Knoblauch
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  4. Thomas Schack
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Correspondence to Christian Seegelke.

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Seegelke, C., Hughes, C.M.L., Knoblauch, A. et al. The influence of reducing intermediate target constraints on grasp posture planning during a three-segment object manipulation task. Exp Brain Res 233, 529–538 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00221-014-4133-4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00221-014-4133-4

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