title: Small forces that differ with prior motor experience can communicate movement goals during human-human physical interaction.
abstract: Physical interactions between two people are ubiquitous in our daily lives, and an integral part of many forms of rehabilitation. However, few studies have investigated forces arising from physical interactions between humans during a cooperative motor task, particularly during overground movements. As such, the direction and magnitude of interaction forces between two human partners, how those forces are used to communicate movement goals, and whether they change with motor experience remains unknown. A better understanding of how cooperative physical interactions are achieved in healthy individuals of different skill levels is a first step toward understanding principles of physical interactions that could be applied to robotic devices for motor assistance and rehabilitation.
  
  
  
  Interaction forces between expert and novice partner dancers were recorded while performing a forward-backward partnered stepping task with assigned "leader" and "follower" roles. Their position was recorded using motion capture. The magnitude and direction of the interaction forces were analyzed and compared across groups (i.e. expert-expert, expert-novice, and novice-novice) and across movement phases (i.e. forward, backward, change of direction).
  
  
  
  All dyads were able to perform the partnered stepping task with some level of proficiency. Relatively small interaction forces (10-30N) were observed across all dyads, but were significantly larger among expert-expert dyads. Interaction forces were also found to be significantly different across movement phases. However, interaction force magnitude did not change as whole-body synchronization between partners improved across trials.
  
  
  
  Relatively small interaction forces may communicate movement goals (i.e. "what to do and when to do it") between human partners during cooperative physical interactions. Moreover, these small interactions forces vary with prior motor experience, and may act primarily as guiding cues that convey information about movement goals rather than providing physical assistance. This suggests that robots may be able to provide meaningful physical interactions for rehabilitation using relatively small force levels.
authors.affiliation: Department of Kinesiology and Nutrition, University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, IL, 60612, USA.
authors.forename: Andrew
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Sawers
authors.affiliation: W.H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering, Emory University and Georgia Institute of Technology, 1760 Haygood Drive Suite W 200, Atlanta, GA, 30322-4250, USA.
authors.forename: Tapomayukh
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Bhattacharjee
authors.affiliation: W.H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering, Emory University and Georgia Institute of Technology, 1760 Haygood Drive Suite W 200, Atlanta, GA, 30322-4250, USA.
authors.forename: J Lucas
authors.initials: JL
authors.lastname: McKay
authors.affiliation: Atlanta VA Center for Visual and Neurocognitive Rehabilitation, Atlanta, GA, 30033, USA.|Department of Medicine, Division of General Medicine and Geriatrics, Emory University School of Medicine, Atlanta, GA, 30322, USA.
authors.forename: Madeleine E
authors.initials: ME
authors.lastname: Hackney
authors.affiliation: W.H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering, Emory University and Georgia Institute of Technology, 1760 Haygood Drive Suite W 200, Atlanta, GA, 30322-4250, USA.
authors.forename: Charles C
authors.initials: CC
authors.lastname: Kemp
authors.affiliation: W.H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering, Emory University and Georgia Institute of Technology, 1760 Haygood Drive Suite W 200, Atlanta, GA, 30322-4250, USA. lena.ting@bme.gatech.edu.|Department of Rehabilitation Medicine, Division of Physical Therapy, Emory University School of Medicine, Atlanta, GA, 30322, USA. lena.ting@bme.gatech.edu.
authors.forename: Lena H
authors.initials: LH
authors.lastname: Ting
mesh_terms: D003299:Cooperative Behavior; D003463:Cues; D005260:Female; D006040:Goals; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009068:Movement / Q000502:physiology*
keywords: Haptics; Human-human interaction; Human-robot interaction; Rehabilitation; Rehabilitation robotics