Sensorimotor integration: A special emphasis on visual inputs for goal-directed movements

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

4-1-2015

Abstract

Performances of many activities of daily living rely on the proper integration of different sensory and motor systems. In neurologically healthy people the CNS integrates sensory cues into task commands to control performances. Use of visual inputs from central and peripheral visual fields can facilitate the online control of movement and form spatial memories about a target goal, the environment, or both. Thus after people execute a motor program or a set of commands to produce the movement, they can attempt to match hand movement to the spatial perceptions of remembered target locations to complete the goal with a certain amount of accuracy. Orientation of gaze, environmental illumination, and access to visual inputs about the movement can influence this goal-directed precision. A special phenomenon of reaching to remembered target locations along the earth-fixed vertical in illuminated and dark environments exists such that upright individuals will end reaches in the dark either lower than reaches to remembered target locations in an illuminated environment or lower than remembered target locations. Experimental outcomes revealed that error differences between performances in dark and illuminated environments observed for upright individuals were also observed individuals lying supine. These findings show that the phenomenon of reaching lower in the dark is not limited to upright individuals or based on an egocentric movement direction along the longitudinal body axis.

Publication Source (Journal or Book title)

Advances in Visual Perception Research

First Page

293

Last Page

318

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