Global effect of a nearby distractor on targeting eye and hand movements.
Eye-hand coordination was investigated with the global effect paradigm. In this paradigm, saccades typically land in between the target and a nearby presented distractor, the configuration's center of gravity. This so-called global effect, or spatial averaging, is attributed to incomplete target selection. Four experiments demonstrated a similar effect for hand movements; thus, eye and hand are coupled during target selection. However, under some conditions the global effect was different for eye and hand, suggesting that their coupling is not achieved through a shared target representation. Instead, eye and hand seem to use 2 separate target representations that exchange information. The convergent amplitudes of eye and hand with simultaneous execution support this interpretation. Latencies showed a similar converging pattern.
Sailer
Uta
U
Department of Neurology, Center for Sensorimotor Research, Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich, Munich, Germany. usailer@nefo.med.uni-muenchen.de
Eggert
Thomas
T
Ditterich
Jochen
J
Straube
Andreas
A
D000328:Adult; D005260:Female; D005403:Fixation, Ocular / Q000502:physiology; D006225:Hand / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009068:Movement / Q000502:physiology*; D010470:Perceptual Masking; D012438:Saccades / Q000502:physiology*