Time domain characteristics of human force control in rejection of transient disturbances during movement

Abstract

Many tasks that humans successfully complete are more naturally represented in terms of their force requirements than their state (position or velocity) requirements. Yet the literature on force and timing is relatively underrepresented. This work was an attempt to clarify whether feedforward and/or feedback force control mechanisms might be available in human motor control. Subjects were trained and tested rejecting simple square pulse disturbance forces perpendicular to concurrent reaching movements. The data was analyzed with the goals of both verifying the feasibility of a proposed control model, and then clarifying the capabilities, limitations and properties of such a controller.