Eye-Hand Coordination: Dexterous Object Manipulation in New Gravity Fields

A research team has designed a series of experiments to study the effects of a change in gravity on the dynamics of prehension, on the kinematics of upper limb movements and on eye-hand coordination. The anticipatory grip force used to support the object would need to be modified, in a modified gravitational environment. An experiment was performed during the 31st ESA parabolic flight campaign in the year 2001. The main finding was that the magnitude of the normal force was adequately adjusted for each maximum of load so as to maintain the same minimal ratio between the normal force and the destabilizing tangential load in the nine loading conditions.