Hand-Foot Coordination 1: Foot Positions While Grasping Indicate Brain Processes

Have you ever thought about how you coordinate your hands and feet together during everyday tasks?

Our brain makes it easy to do. I will make it easy to understand.

Look closely!

The person shown above is changing their stance, at the very instance they are grabbing a box, depending on which direction they are planning to carry it.
They are planning ahead, and they don’t even consciously realize it.

I led 14 undergraduate researchers, setting up a video camera and observing whether or not the hands or feet of 19 participants would change depending on 4 conditions

Chi square analysis revealed significant changes for the feet

This implies that the lower limbs adjust depending on the subsequent action they will need to make after grasping

Background photo by SHVETS production

Design Implications

Since foot placement signals turning direction, that shows people have dynamic postural preferences, and the forms of those postures depend on the task at hand. Thus, when a user is operating technology, unpracticed postural forms that fail to accommodate what the user would naturally perform will increase cognitive load of the user. Technology design can benefit from making use of intuitive motions, but also by making inferences about cognitive planning based on macroscopic postural adjustments. Additionally, motion-based technology dealing with human motor control would be well served by addressing interlimb coordination.