Online updating of obstacle positions when intercepting a virtual target

Emily M. Crowe*, Jeroen B.J. Smeets, Eli Brenner

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to JournalArticleAcademicpeer-review

Abstract

People rely upon sensory information in the environment to guide their actions. Ongoing goal-directed arm movements are constantly adjusted to the latest estimate of both the target and hand’s positions. Does the continuous guidance of ongoing arm movements also consider the latest visual information of the position of obstacles in the surrounding? To find out, we asked participants to slide their finger across a screen to intercept a laterally moving virtual target while moving through a gap that was created by two virtual circular obstacles. At a fixed time during each trial, the target suddenly jumped slightly laterally while still continuing to move. In half the trials, the size of the gap changed at the same moment as the target jumped. As expected, participants adjusted their movements in response to the target jump. Importantly, the magnitude of this response depended on the new size of the gap. If participants were told that the circles were irrelevant, changing the gap between them had no effect on the responses. This shows that obstacles’ instantaneous positions can be considered when visually guiding goal-directed movements.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)1811-1820
JournalExperimental Brain Research
Volume241
Issue number7
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 27 May 2023

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
This work was supported by the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO) under Project No. 464.18.111 awarded to Eli Brenner.

Publisher Copyright:
© 2023, The Author(s).

Funding

This work was supported by the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO) under Project No. 464.18.111 awarded to Eli Brenner.

Keywords

  • Adjustment
  • Interception
  • Obstacles
  • Online control
  • Perturbation

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