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Land, Michael F (2005) Eye-hand coordination: learning a new trick. Current Biology, 15 (23). R955-R956. ISSN 0960-9822
Full text not available from this repository.Abstract
In many manual tasks, a specific repertoire of eye movements accompanies the actions. A new study has shown how this pattern changes as eye and hand become coordinated when learning a new skill.
During everyday activities — driving, making a sandwich or playing ping-pong — our eyes search ahead, trying to find the information that our hands and limbs need to carry out their tasks. It has become clear in the last 20 years, since it became possible to monitor eye movements in freely moving people, that the eye-movement system does far more than respond reflexly to objects that catch the eye. In a skilled motor task, eye movement has a role that is different from the action itself, but thoroughly enmeshed with it. For example, in driving on a winding road, one job of the eyes is to locate and track the inside lane edge (tangent point) of the next bend, as its location relative to the driver provides direct information about road curvature, and hence how much to turn the steering wheel. There are many other examples where a precise eye movement strategy is a crucial component of the larger action. What has never been addressed before is how, during the acquisition of a skill, the motor and eye movement strategies co-evolve. This has now been done, as reported recently in The Journal of Neuroscience.
| Item Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Additional Information: | Invited 'dispatch' on a paper by Sailer et al. |
| Schools and Departments: | School of Life Sciences > Biology and Environmental Science |
| Depositing User: | Michael Land |
| Date Deposited: | 06 Feb 2012 19:13 |
| Last Modified: | 24 Jul 2012 13:07 |
| URI: | http://sro.sussex.ac.uk/id/eprint/19645 |