Host Institution: Aix-Marseille University
Department that hosts the PhD: Institute for Movement Sciences
Contact: Prof. dr. Bootsma (use this email contact only to request additional information, do NOT use this email for applications)
Project description
This project’s goal is to specify how learning to perform a manual joint-action task can be understood as learning to coordinate one’s upper-limb actions with those of others on the basis of task-level information available to all participants and to translate this into a novel, joint action-based rehabilitation method for improving dexterity in people with mild arm paresis (MAP) after stroke.
In the project task two or more people jointly hold a large circular platform and manipulate its orientation, so as to roll a marble over the platform to a goal. Because marble motion is fully determined by (changes in) platform orientation, it constitutes useful task-level information for all individual participants with respect to required platform (re)orientation. Learning to perform the task together therefore implies learning to collaborate, that is, to set up an information-driven mode of coordination of individual upper-limb actions.
Characterizing between-participant coordination modes and understanding their informational bases will be achieved (i) by comparisons of learning-induced changes in behaviour on the task performed in 2- or 3-person configurations with those of individuals performing the task alone and (ii) by manipulation of the visual and haptic information available using a virtual-reality variation of the task, where participants jointly manipulate either a real or virtual platform, visually represented on head-mounted displays. Experiments with healthy participants (including experimental confederates) are complemented with experiments combining healthy and MAP participants to explore the potential benefits on dexterity of training on a joint-action task, where performance on the task depends not only on their own actions but also on those of other participants.
People involved
Key publications
Riley, M. A., Richardson, M. J., Shockley, K. , & Ramenzoni, V. C. (2011). Interpersonal synergies. Front. Psychol. 2, 38. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2011.00038
Tuitert, I., Golenia, L., Otten, E., Bootsma, R.J., & Bongers, R.M. (2020). Task constraints act at the level of synergies and at the level of end-effector kinematics in manual reaching and manual lateral interception. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 46(12), 1511–1526. https://doi.org/10.1037/xhp0000861
Zaal, F.T.J.M., & Bootsma, R.J. (2011). Virtual reality as a tool for the study of perception-action: the case of running to catch fly balls. Presence: Teleoperators and Virtual Environments, 20, 93-103. https://doi.org/10.1162/pres_a_00037
Specific required skills of PhD student
| Skill area | |
| Language (writing) | English |
| Language (speaking) | English |
| Programming | Matlab or Python |
| Statistics | Non-linear data analyses |
| Statistical programs | R |
| Background | Human Movement Sciences, Sport & Exercise Science, Behavioural Sciences, Cognitive Sciences, Experimental Psychology, Rehabilitation Science |
| Project specific knowledge | Information-movement coupling
Synergies |
Project characteristics
| Primary focus project | Behavioural experiments with humans
Able-bodied adults without disorders Adults with mild paresis |
| Methods | Information-driven dynamics
UCM, dimensional compression, reciprocal compensation |