Relation between object recognition and formation of hand shape: A computational approach to human grasping movements

We investigate the relation between object recognition and formation of hand shape in human grasping movements through psychophysical experiments. There were few differences between the experimental data when the subjects formed the hand shape without touching objects and when the subjects actually grasped the objects. Both data included information related to the size and shape of the objects. The experimental results suggest that humans are able to compute the hand shape needed to grasp the objects from their visual properties alone before actual grasping. Moreover, developing a five-layered neural network model, we confirmed that the hand shape can be computed from only visual information in the feed-forward manner and that the property information of the objects is extracted when visual-motor transformation is performed. © 2000 Scripta Technica, Syst Comp Jpn, 31(12): 11–22, 2000