Asymmetric Prehension Data

Publication Summary

This dataset is supplied to accompany the paper entitled "Predicting the duration of reach-to-grasp movements to objects with asymmetric contact surfaces". It contains data from a series of experiments. In Experiment 1a, participants reached-to-lift wooden blocks off a table top, with the contact locations for the thumb and index finger varying in surface size. In Experiment 1b participants reached-to-grasp the wooden blocks. Experiment 2 tested whether our findings generalised to reach-to-grasp behaviour with conical frusta grasped in a different plane (thumb on top, finger on bottom) mounted off the table top. The thumb surface was the visible surface in experiments 1 and 2 so Experiment 3 explored grasping when the index finger’s surface was visible (participants grasped the frustae with the index finger at the top). Our findings provide the first empirical report of the impact of asymmetric grasp surfaces on prehension and may have implications for scientists who wish to model reach-to-grasp behaviours.