title: Cognitive costs of motor planning do not differ between pointing and grasping in a sequential task.
abstract: Neurophysiologic studies have shown differences in brain activation between pointing and grasping movements. We asked whether these two movement types would differ in their cognitive costs of motor planning. To this end, we designed a sequential, continuous posture selection task, suitable to investigate pointing and grasping movements to identical target locations. Participants had to open a column of drawers or point to a column of targets in ascending and descending progression. The global hand pro/supination at the moment of drawer/target contact was measured. The size of the motor hysteresis effect, i.e., the persistence to a former posture, was used as a proxy for the cognitive cost of motor planning. A larger hysteresis effect equals higher cognitive cost. Both motor tasks had similar costs of motor planning, but a larger range of motion was found for the grasping movements.
authors.affiliation: Faculty of Psychology and Sports Science, Bielefeld University, Universitätsstraße 25, 33615, Bielefeld, Germany. christoph.schuetz@uni-bielefeld.de.
authors.forename: Christoph
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Schütz
authors.affiliation: Department of Sports and Health, University of Paderborn, Paderborn, Germany.
authors.forename: Matthias
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Weigelt
authors.affiliation: Faculty of Psychology and Sports Science, Bielefeld University, Universitätsstraße 25, 33615, Bielefeld, Germany.|Cognitive Interaction Technology, Center of Excellence, Bielefeld University, Bielefeld, Germany.|CoR-Lab, Research Institute for Cognition and Robotics, Bielefeld University, Bielefeld, Germany.
authors.forename: Thomas
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Schack
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001696:Biomechanical Phenomena; D056344:Executive Function / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006225:Hand / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009043:Motor Activity / Q000502:physiology*; D011597:Psychomotor Performance / Q000502:physiology*; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Cognitive cost; Grasping; Motor hysteresis; Motor planning; Pointing