Eye-hand coordination in uni- and bimanual goal-oriented tasks

Two different drawer tasks were investigated with the aim of assessing the role of eye movements in well-coordinated hand movements. In an unimanual s tep-tracking task, which had a predictive and an unpredictive movement, a t wo-way repeated-measures ANOVA showed a significant effect of prediction on the onset of grip-force (GF) rate (300+/-39 ms for the predictive conditio n versus 394+/-53 ms for the non-predictive condition, P<0.0001). Correlati on coefficients. computed from the eye and the hand movements were low for the right and the left hand. The saccade was more coupled with the visual s tep change than with the action of the hand per se. In a second bimanual pu ll-and-pick task, the instruction was to pull a drawer with the left hand f rom a closed position to a LED-cued open position and then to grasp and rei nsert a small peg in the drawer with the right hand. Correlation coefficien ts, computed from the latencies of saccades and of the leading left hand or of the right hand, were significant in four of five subjects. Intermanual correlations were significant in all five subjects. In conclusion, we found that the initial saccade in the unimanual task was best related with the v isual step change, but was poorly correlated with the pulling/pushing hand. In the bimanual task, a moderate, but significant temporal coupling betwee n the eyes and hand events was observed. This coupling was, however, less t ight than that between both hands.