We explored a hypothesis that transient perturbations applied to a redundant system result in equifinality in the space of task-related performance variables but not in the space of elemental variables. The subjects pressed with four fingers and produced an accurate constant total force level. The "inverse piano" device was used to lift and lower one of the fingers smoothly. The subjects were i...

Grip strength is affected by such as enslaving effect, force sharing effect, and force deficit effect relating to the interaction among fingers. The author attempts to analyze index finger strength according to grip span of adjacent middle finger. 6 male graduate students participated as subjects in this experiment. The grip span has been applied from 45 mm to 60mm to investigate the effects of...

We investigated the ability of cerebellar patients and unskilled subjects to control finger grip position and the amplitude of finger opening during a multijoint overarm throw. This situation is of interest because the appropriate finger control requires predicting the magnitude of back forces from the ball on the finger throughout the throw and generating the appropriate level and rate of chan...

Fingers of the hand are interdependent: when a person moves one finger or produces a force with a fingertip, other fingers of the hand also move or show force production. Hence, no direct correspondence exists between the neural commands to individual fingers and finger forces. The relations among fingers are described with inter-finger connection matrices, IFM. The IFMs depend on the number of...

We investigated the effect of 6 wk of strength training on maximal pressing (MVC) force, indexes of finger individuation (enslaving), and performance in accurate force production tests and in functional hand tests in healthy, physically fit, elderly individuals. Twelve participants (average age 76 yr) exercised with both hands. One of the hands exercised by pressing with the proximal phalanges ...

An artificial elastic finger skin for robot fingers is developed for controlling grasp force when weight and frictional coefficient of the grasped object is unknown. The elastic finger skin has ridges at the surface to divide the stick/slip area. It also has a pair of tactile sensors embedded per one ridge same as finger of human. Surface of the whole finger is curved so that reaction force dis...

An in vivo tendon force measurement system was used to evaluate index finger flexor motor control patterns during active finger flexion. During open carpal tunnel release surgery (N=12) the flexor digitorum profundus (FDP) and flexor digitorum superficilias (FDS) tendons were instrumented with buckle force transducers and participants performed finger flexion at two different wrist angles (0 de...

One of the techniques taught in dental and dental hygiene programs is to use finger rests to stabilize the instrument while performing dental scaling or other types of dental work. It is believed that finger rests may also reduce muscle stress and prevent injury due to muscle fatigue. In this study the effects of three different finger rest positions on hand muscle activity and thumb pinch forc...

This paper presents a real-time embedded framework for finger force control of upper extremity prostheses. The proposed system is based on the hypothesis that models describing the finger force and surface Electromyographic (sEMG) signal relationships of healthy subjects can be applied to amputees. An identification/estimation scheme is applied to the collected sEMG and finger force signals in ...