Role of path information in visual perception of joint stiffness
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journal.pcbi.1010729.pdf
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1.51 MB
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6d84b8034634e1e17321bf618b0e5357
Author(s)
West, A. Michael
Huber, Meghan E.
Hogan, Neville
Date Issued
November 28, 2022
Journal
PLOS Computational Biology
Publisher
Public Library of Science (PLoS)
Citation
West AM Jr, Huber ME, Hogan N (2022) Role of path information in visual perception of joint stiffness. PLoS Comput Biol 18(11): e1010729.
Version
Final published version
Abstract
Humans have an astonishing ability to extract hidden information from the movement of others. In previous work, subjects observed the motion of a simulated stick-figure, two-link planar arm and estimated its stiffness. Fundamentally, stiffness is the relation between force and displacement. Given that subjects were unable to physically interact with the simulated arm, they were forced to make their estimates solely based on observed kinematic information. Remarkably, subjects were able to correctly correlate their stiffness estimates with changes in the simulated stiffness, despite the lack of force information. We hypothesized that subjects were only able to do this because the controller used to produce the simulated arm’s movement, composed of oscillatory motions driving mechanical impedances, resembled the controller humans use to produce their own movement. However, it is still unknown what motion features subjects used to estimate stiffness. Human motion exhibits systematic velocity-curvature patterns, and it has previously been shown that these patterns play an important role in perceiving and interpreting motion. Thus, we hypothesized that manipulating the velocity profile should affect subjects’ ability to estimate stiffness. To test this, we changed the velocity profile of the simulated two-link planar arm while keeping the simulated joint paths the same. Even with manipulated velocity signals, subjects were still able to estimate changes in simulated joint stiffness. However, when subjects were shown the same simulated path with different velocity profiles, they perceived motions that followed a veridical velocity profile to be less stiff than that of a non-veridical profile. These results suggest that path information (displacement) predominates over temporal information (velocity) when humans use visual observation to estimate stiffness.
Subjects
Computational Theory and Mathematics
Cellular and Molecular Neuroscience
Genetics
Molecular Biology
Ecology
Modeling and Simulation
Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Mechanical Engineering
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences
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Creative Commons Attribution
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DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1010729
