Using Visual Information in Functional Stabilization: Pole-Balancing Example

Some of the common tasks that confront us in our day-to-day living involve stabilizing unstable situations. Typical examples are maintaining posture (Jeka & Lackner, 1995), or trying to stand still or preventing falls when walking. Coordinating articulator movements, if the required coordination pattern is not in our repertoire of stable movement activities, can also be considered as a stabilization problem (Zanone & Kelso, 1992). And of course, there is the problem continuously balancing an object that will not balance on its own. The last problem has traditionally been addressed with considerable success within the domain of physical control theory (e.g., see Kwakernaak & Sivan, 1972). Our focus is on human pole balancing and the relevant information involved accomplishing the task.

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