• the functional relations among task demands, object characteristics, and the planning and control of prehension
• the role of vision, touch, audition and kinesthesis in the planning and on-line control of movement
• role of sensory-motor integration in skilled human performance, like golf, surgery, and musical expression
• using a variety of computer input devices to analyze kinematics, errors, and task outcomes
• the cognitive and motor aspects of human-machine interaction
• visualizing limb motion patterns through animation and graphical display of experimental results
• mapping strategies for pointing, selection and object maniplation on remote computer displays
• using real-time data from hand-centered input to drive multimodal computer interfaces
• comparisons among interactions with physical, augmented and virtual objects and surfaces
• force measurements of the grasping hand to look at the control strategies and the use of visual, auditory and haptic information

A number of long-term research projects are currently underway including investigations of the planning and control of goal-directed movement, motor learning, visuomotor control, human-computer interaction, and remote manipulation. Research is conducted in conjunction with the Experimental Robotics Lab, Medical Computing Lab and Computer Graphics Lab (GrUVi) at Simon Fraser University and the University of British Columbia (MAGIC Laboratory). One focus is upon goal-directed limb movement, and in particular, eye-hand co-ordination and the grasping hand. This research program explores how object properties and task requirements affect the planning and control of prehensile movements. This work is currently being extended from physical to virtual objects and telemanipulation of physical and virtual objects.

A series of studies have been undertaken to examine the specificity of learning hypothesis. We train individual subjects on a movement task in predefined sensory feedback conditions, then transfer them to similar or different conditions. To date, we have manipulated the amount of visual information available to the subject, varied the accuracy of the proprioceptive feedback the subject receives, and either provided or eliminated any knowledge of results (KR), in motor learning and surgical tasks.

Human interaction in virtual and augmented environments is also investigated. In the Enhanced Virtual Hand Lab, studies on pointing, object transportation, orientation, manipulation, and docking have been conducted. We superimpose multimodal computer generated displays on the physical environment in a stereoscopic, head-coupled "fishtank" VR environment (EVHL). Current research includes redundant and substitutve computer-generated displays, e.g., for contact cues, and investigations of the size-weight and sound-weight illusions.

Research on minimally invasive surgery has included survey research across surgical specialties, observational studies in operating rooms, video annotation and hiearchical decomposition of surgical procedures through steps, tasks and tool motions. In addition, controlled experiments are conducted on surgical visualization and manipulation technologies, surgical process and user ineraction to accomplish surgical goals. We are working with academic colleagues in medical imaging to fuse 3-D digital medical images with endoscopic camera views, and with colleagues in medical robotics to integrate perceptual robotics, in order to pursue image-guided and computer integrated surgical applications.

We study novice and expert performers in movement, sport and surgical tasks (e.g., hammering, dart throwing, golfing and laparoscopic surgery) to understand how their performances differ and what implications this may have for facilitating skill acquisition.

Research Funding:

Research in the Human Motor Systems Laboratory is funded by NSERC and MSFHR.