Multi-digit tactile perception I: motion integration benefits for tactile trajectories presented bimanually

Interactions with objects involve simultaneous contact with multiple, not necessarily adjacent, skin regions. While advances have been made in understanding the capacity to selectively attend to a single tactile element among distracting stimulations, here, we examine how multiple stimulus elements are explicitly integrated into an overall tactile percept. Across four experiments, participants averaged the direction of two simultaneous tactile motion trajectories of varying discrepancy delivered to different fingerpads. Averaging performance differed between within- and between-hands conditions in terms of sensitivity and precision but was unaffected by somatotopic proximity between stimulated fingers. First, precision was greater in between-hand compared to within-hand conditions, demonstrating a bimanual perceptual advantage in multi-touch integration. Second, sensitivity to the average direction was influenced by the discrepancy between individual motion signals, but only for within-hand conditions. Overall, our experiments identify key factors that influence perception of simultaneous tactile events. In particular, we show that multi-touch integration is constrained by hand-specific rather than digit-specific mechanisms

Seeing motion of controlled object improves grip timing in adults with autism spectrum condition: evidence for use of inverse dynamics in motor control

Previous studies (Haswell et al. in Nat Neurosci 12:970–972, 2009; Marko et al. in Brain J Neurol 138:784–797, 2015) reported that people with autism rely less on vision for learning to reach in a force field. This suggested a possibility that they have difficulties in extracting force information from visual motion signals, a process called inverse dynamics computation. Our recent study (Takamuku et al. in J Int Soc Autism Res 11:1062–1075, 2018) examined the ability of inverse computation with two perceptual tasks and found similar performances in typical and autistic adults. However, this tested the computation only in the context of sensory perception while it was possible that the suspected disability is specific to the motor domain. Here, in order to address the concern, we tested the use of inverse dynamics computation in the context of motor control by measuring changes in grip timing caused by seeing/not seeing a controlled object. The motion of the object was informative of its inertial force and typical participants improved their grip timing based on the visual feedback. Our interest was on whether the autism participants show the same improvement. While some autism participants showed atypical hand slowing when seeing the controlled object, we found no evidence of abnormalities in the inverse computation in our grip timing task or in a replication of the perceptual task. This suggests that the ability of inverse dynamics computation is preserved not only for sensory perception but also for motor control in adults with autism

Reversion Characteristics in an Al-4wt%Cu Alloy

The X-ray diffuse scattering intensity around the 110 reciprocal lattice point was measured in order to determine quantitatively the amount and size of precipitates during ageing and reversion. The precipitated phase was definitely determined by the aids of Laue X-ray photographs and the electron diffraction patterns. The electrical resistivity was carefully measured. When the alloy was aged for 1000 min at 373K, the GP zones precipitated with a mean diameter of 8.0nm. During the reversion, those zones dissolved perfectly above 458K, which is in good agreement with the result of Beton and Rollason. After the perfect dissolution of the GP zones, the Θ′ phase precipitated directly and heterogeneously. By ageing for 4000 min at 408K, the Θ″ phase precipitated with a mean diameter of 12.5 nm. When its aged alloy was reverted, the temperature at which the volume fraction of precipitates becomes minimum, but not zero, was 498K, where the successively precipitated Θ′phase exsisted already

Multi-Method Learning and Assimilation

Considering the wide range of possible behaviors to be acquired for domestic robots, applying a single learning method is clearly insufficient. In this paper, we propose a new strategy for behavior acquisition for domestic robots where the behaviors are acquired using multiple differing learning methods that are subsequently incorporated into a common behavior selection system, enabling them to be performed in appropriate situations. An example implementation of this strategy applied to the entertainment humanoid robot QRIO is introduced and the results are discussed