Motor Control Strategies

Previous studies on sequential effects of human grasping behavior were restricted to binary grasp type selection. We asked whether two established motor control strategies, the end-state comfort effect and the hysteresis effect, would hold for sequential motor tasks with continuous solutions.

To this end, participants were tested in a sequential (predictable) and a randomized (nonpredictable) perceptual- motor task, which offered a continuous range of posture solutions for each movement trial. Both the end-state comfort effect and the hysteresis effect were reproduced under predictable, continuous conditions, but only the end-state comfort effect was present under nonpredictable conditions.

Experimental results further revealed a work range restriction effect, which was reproduced for the dominant and the nondominant hand.