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Visuo-motor coordination and internal models for object interception

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Abstract

Intercepting and avoiding collisions with moving objects are fundamental skills in daily life. Anticipatory behavior is required because of significant delays in transforming sensory information about target and body motion into a timed motor response. The ability to predict the kinematics and kinetics of interception or avoidance hundreds of milliseconds before the event may depend on several different sources of information and on different strategies of sensory-motor coordination. What are exactly the sources of spatio-temporal information and what are the control strategies remain controversial issues. Indeed, these topics have been the battlefield of contrasting views on how the brain interprets visual information to guide movement. Here we attempt a synthetic overview of the vast literature on interception. We discuss in detail the behavioral and neurophysiological aspects of interception of targets falling under gravity, as this topic has received special attention in recent years. We show that visual cues alone are insufficient to predict the time and place of interception or avoidance, and they need to be supplemented by prior knowledge (or internal models) about several features of the dynamic interaction with the moving object.

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Notes

  1. When the hand is not stationary but moves to intersect target trajectory, hand and target motion may be appropriately described using the polar coordinates of direction and distance, and their time derivatives.

  2. Variables are implicitly considered function of time unless stated otherwise. Thus, θ stays for θ(t), \( \dot{\theta}\) stays for dθ(t)/dt. Initial values are denoted by the lowered 0: \( \dot{\theta }_{0} \) stays for [dθ(t)/dt] t=0. In the following, for simplicity we assume that a given variable represents the neural estimate at that instant of time. In fact, estimates within the CNS are generally affected by significant transmission delays (see “Neural and mechanical delays”). Moreover, neural estimates likely reflect the average of several values sampled over an interval of time, rather than instantaneous values.

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Acknowledgments

We thank Prof. David Regan for a critical reading of a previous version of this paper. Research was supported by grants from the Italian Space Agency (DCMC grant), the Italian Ministry of University and Research (PRIN grant), the Italian Ministry of Health (RC and RF ISPESL grants), the French Space Agency CNES, and the European Integrated Project contract 001917 (Neurobotics).

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  1. Laboratory of Human Neurophysiology, IRCCS Santa Lucia Foundation, University of Rome Tor Vergata, via Ardeatina 306, 00179, Rome, Italy

    Myrka Zago & Francesco Lacquaniti

  2. Laboratoire de Neurobiologie des Réseaux Sensorimoteurs, CNRS, Université Paris Descartes, 45 rue des Saints Pères, 75270, Paris, France

    Joseph McIntyre & Patrice Senot

  3. Department of Neuroscience, University of Rome Tor Vergata, Via Montpellier 1, 00133, Rome, Italy

    Francesco Lacquaniti

  4. Center of Space Biomedicine, University of Rome Tor Vergata, Via Montpellier 1, 00133, Rome, Italy

    Francesco Lacquaniti

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  1. Myrka Zago
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  4. Francesco Lacquaniti
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Correspondence to Francesco Lacquaniti.

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Zago, M., McIntyre, J., Senot, P. et al. Visuo-motor coordination and internal models for object interception. Exp Brain Res 192, 571–604 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00221-008-1691-3

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