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Review
. 2014 Dec 15:5:1480.
doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2014.01480. eCollection 2014.

Manual (a)symmetries in grasp posture planning: a short review

Christian Seegelke  1 , Charmayne Mary Lee Hughes  2 , Thomas Schack  3
Affiliations
Review

Manual (a)symmetries in grasp posture planning: a short review

Christian Seegelke et al. Front Psychol. .

Abstract

Many activities of daily living require that we physically interact with one or more objects. Object manipulation provides an intriguing domain in which the presence and extent of manual asymmetries can be studied on a motor planning and a motor execution level. In this literature review we present a state of the art for manual asymmetries at the level of motor planning during object manipulation. First, we introduce pioneering work on grasp posture planning. We then sketch the studies investigating the impact of future task demands during unimanual and bimanual object manipulation tasks in healthy adult populations. In sum, in contrast to motor execution, there is little evidence for hand-based performance differences in grasp posture planning. We discuss potential reasons for the lack of manual asymmetries in motor planning and outline potential avenues of future research.

Keywords: bimanual coordination; end-state comfort; grasping; manual asymmetries; motor planning.

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Figures

FIGURE 1
FIGURE 1
Assessment of manual asymmetries in end-state comfort in unimanual tasks. Negative values indicate higher end-state comfort for the left hand, positive values indicate higher end-state comfort for the right hand. For Herbort and Butz (2011) values are based on participants who exclusively used thumb-up and thumb-down grasps. Results from Rosenbaum et al. (1993) are not shown as no exact values are presented in this paper.
FIGURE 2
FIGURE 2
Assessment of manual asymmetries in end-state comfort in bimanual tasks. Negative values indicate higher end-state comfort for the left hand, positive values indicate higher end-state comfort for the right hand. Asterisks indicate significant differences between the hands. LH = left handers, RH = right handers. Results from Fischman et al. (2003) and van der Wel and Rosenbaum (2010) are not shown as no exact values are presented in these papers.
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