Perception and motor control

This course addresses the fundamental basics of the perception action cycle. This includes the following topics:

Psychophysics and signal detection theory - perceptual processes are noisy, they differ over time and from person to person, and the relevant variables are latent. Psychophysics and signal detection theory are well-established methods for measuring human perceptual processes.

Sensory organs and the senses - Our sensory organs provide information about our own bodies and the world, so it is important to study the transduction processes in detail. Despite appearances, sensory information is usually not physically correct, which begs the question how they can work at all.

Vision - Vision is our dominant sense and is far superior to generic artificial vision. This just shows that many perceptual functions are only partially understood. This topic addresses the basics of visual perception such as spatial vision, color vision, depth perception, motion perception and the relation to display technology.

Sound perception - Just by listening people easily distinguish voices, musical instruments, material properties, environmental properties and sound sources. Like vision human sound perception is far superior to any artificial system, and only partially understood. This topic addresses pitch perception, loudness perceptions, sound localization and speech perception.

Haptics - Manipulating objects relies on a very sophisticated sense of touch. We feel weights, roughness, volume, material, slippage and much more. Together with the vestibular system and proprioception touch provides detailed information about the relation of our body to objects in the world.

Motor control - Muscles flex our joints and they are mostly controlled by our nervous system. The mapping from a motor plan to the actual movement is highly non-trivial, however. Here the basics are treated about the skeletal and muscle systems, and functional theories about motor control

Perception and action - We perceive to act, we act to perceive. Perception and action are not independent, but highly intertwined. This topic addresses the interdependencies of perceptual and motor systems.

Knowledge:

• The student will gain knowledge about
• the role and nature of the human perception-action cycle
• the functional properties of the sensory organs in terms of signal properties, signal transduction, stimulus recognition and interpretation.
• the functional properties of human motor control
• models of perceptual systems and human motor control

With this knowledge the student is able to:

• determine the mechanisms underlying perceptual and human motor control phenomena
• design and conduct simple perceptual/human motor control experimental studies
• apply the theory to interpret experimental data of human behaviour

Skills:

• The student is able to give a clear, innovative and concise presentation that shows the outcomes of one of the assignments.
• The student is able to reflect on own presentation skills and to define an action plan accordingly.

Attitude:

• analytic and logical reasoning about complex perceptual and human motor control systems

You must meet the following requirements

• Registered for a degree programme other than
• HBO-TOP Applied Physics, Pre-Master

• D.A. Rosenbaum (2010). Human Motor Control, 2nd Ed., Amsterdam: Academic Press. (ISBN 978-1-84169-699-7)
• G. Mather (2016). Foundations of Sensation and Perception, 3rd Ed., Oxon: Routledge. (ISBN 978-0-12-3742261)