Selection criteria for preparatory object rotation in manual lifting actions
Abstract
Participants lifted a canister by its handle while balancing a ball on the lid. Experiment 1 allowed object rotation prior to lifting. A lifting comfort zone was measured by the variability in object orientation at lift; its size depended on the object mass and required task precision. The amount of pre-lift rotation correlated with the resulting change in lifting capability, as measured for different object orientations. Experiment 2 required direct grasping, without preparatory rotation. Task completion time and success rate decreased, and initial object orientation affected pre-lift time. Results suggest that lifting from the comfort zone produces more robust performance at a cost of slower completion; moreover, physical rotation could be replaced by mental planning when direct grasping is enforced.
This is a preprint of an article whose final and definitive form has been published in the Journal of Motor Behavior, available online at: http://heldref.metapress.com/openurl.asp?genre=article&id=doi:10.1080/00222890903269195 This work was supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF) through grants IIS-0326322, ECS-0325383, and CCF-0702443. L. Y. Chang received support from a NSF Graduate Research Fellowship and a NASA Harriet G. Jenkins Pre-Doctoral Fellowship. The authors thank Professor Howard Seltman for suggestions on the statistical analysis and Justin Macey for assistance with the data acquisition.
BibTeX
@article{Chang-2010-10381,author = {Lillian Y. Chang and Roberta L. Klatzky and Nancy Pollard},
title = {Selection criteria for preparatory object rotation in manual lifting actions},
journal = {Journal of Motor Behavior},
year = {2010},
month = {February},
volume = {42},
number = {1},
pages = {11 - 27},
keywords = {preparatory manipulation, object rotation, lifting capability, alternative movement strategies},
}