Skip to main content
bioRxiv
  • Home
  • About
  • Submit
  • ALERTS / RSS
Advanced Search
New Results

Reaching around obstacles accounts for uncertainty in coordinate transformations

Parisa Abedi Khoozani, Dimitris Voudouris, Gunnar Blohm, Katja Fiehler
doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/706317
Parisa Abedi Khoozani
1Centre for Neuroscience Studies, Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada
2Canadian Action and Perception Network (CAPnet), Toronto, Ontario, Canada
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
  • For correspondence: 0kpa@queensu.ca
Dimitris Voudouris
4Center for Mind, Brain, and Behaviour, Marburg University, Marburg, Germany
5Psychology and Sport Sciences, Justus Liebig University, Giessen, Germany
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
Gunnar Blohm
1Centre for Neuroscience Studies, Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada
2Canadian Action and Perception Network (CAPnet), Toronto, Ontario, Canada
3Association for Canadian Neuroinformatics and Computational Neuroscience (CNCN), Kingston, Ontario, Canada
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
Katja Fiehler
4Center for Mind, Brain, and Behaviour, Marburg University, Marburg, Germany
5Psychology and Sport Sciences, Justus Liebig University, Giessen, Germany
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
  • Abstract
  • Full Text
  • Info/History
  • Metrics
  • Data/Code
  • Preview PDF
Loading

Abstract

When reaching to a visual target, humans need to transform the spatial target representation into the coordinate system of their moving arm. It has been shown that increased demands in such coordinate transformations, for instance when the head is rolled toward one shoulder, lead to higher movement variability and influence movement decisions. However, it is unknown whether the brain incorporates such added variability to adjust movements when it is necessary. We designed an obstacle avoidance task in which participants had to reach to a visual target without colliding with an obstacle. We introduced different coordinate transformation demands by varying head roll (straight, 30° clockwise and 30° counterclockwise). In agreement with previous studies, we observed that the reaching variability increased when the head was tilted. In addition, participants systematically changed their obstacle avoidance behavior with head roll. In particular, they changed the preferred direction of passing the obstacle and increased the error margins indicated by stronger movement curvature. Indeed, participants’ reaching movements did not differ in the number of collisions between the head roll and the head straight conditions. These results suggest that the brain takes the added movement variability during head roll into account and compensates for it by adjusting the reaching trajectories.

Footnotes

  • https://osf.io/tf8p5/

  • https://github.com/Parisaabedi/Obstacle-Avoidance

Copyright 
The copyright holder for this preprint is the author/funder, who has granted bioRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. All rights reserved. No reuse allowed without permission.
Back to top
PreviousNext
Posted July 24, 2019.
Download PDF
Data/Code
Email

Thank you for your interest in spreading the word about bioRxiv.

NOTE: Your email address is requested solely to identify you as the sender of this article.

Enter multiple addresses on separate lines or separate them with commas.
Reaching around obstacles accounts for uncertainty in coordinate transformations
(Your Name) has forwarded a page to you from bioRxiv
(Your Name) thought you would like to see this page from the bioRxiv website.
CAPTCHA
This question is for testing whether or not you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.
Share
Reaching around obstacles accounts for uncertainty in coordinate transformations
Parisa Abedi Khoozani, Dimitris Voudouris, Gunnar Blohm, Katja Fiehler
bioRxiv 706317; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/706317
Digg logo Reddit logo Twitter logo Facebook logo Google logo LinkedIn logo Mendeley logo
Citation Tools
Reaching around obstacles accounts for uncertainty in coordinate transformations
Parisa Abedi Khoozani, Dimitris Voudouris, Gunnar Blohm, Katja Fiehler
bioRxiv 706317; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/706317

Citation Manager Formats

  • BibTeX
  • Bookends
  • EasyBib
  • EndNote (tagged)
  • EndNote 8 (xml)
  • Medlars
  • Mendeley
  • Papers
  • RefWorks Tagged
  • Ref Manager
  • RIS
  • Zotero
  • Tweet Widget
  • Facebook Like
  • Google Plus One

Subject Area

  • Neuroscience
Subject Areas
All Articles
  • Animal Behavior and Cognition (4116)
  • Biochemistry (8818)
  • Bioengineering (6522)
  • Bioinformatics (23466)
  • Biophysics (11793)
  • Cancer Biology (9213)
  • Cell Biology (13327)
  • Clinical Trials (138)
  • Developmental Biology (7439)
  • Ecology (11416)
  • Epidemiology (2066)
  • Evolutionary Biology (15155)
  • Genetics (10439)
  • Genomics (14045)
  • Immunology (9174)
  • Microbiology (22160)
  • Molecular Biology (8814)
  • Neuroscience (47582)
  • Paleontology (350)
  • Pathology (1429)
  • Pharmacology and Toxicology (2492)
  • Physiology (3731)
  • Plant Biology (8082)
  • Scientific Communication and Education (1437)
  • Synthetic Biology (2221)
  • Systems Biology (6039)
  • Zoology (1253)