Department of
Psychological and Brain Sciences

• Perception/Action
• Event Perception

• Human visual and haptic perception
• Visual event perception
• Coordination and control
• Visually guided reaches-to-grasp
• Structure-from-motion
• 3D shape perception
• Affordances and long distance throwing
• Space perception
• Calibration
• Affordances and control of grasping
• Developmental Coordination Disorder
• Perceptuo-motor learning across the lifespan

We pursue a number of related programs of research as follows:

Visually guided reaches-to-grasp: We study both feedforward and feedback control of reaches-to-grasp. The former entails investigation of calibration of space perception (i.e. perception of object distance, size and 3D shape), of 3D shape perception, and of the perception of affordances for grasping. The latter involves discovery of the visual information used to guide reaches online and modeling the dynamics of such control. We have most recently studied reaching in the context of walking-to-reach, a problem that entails coordination of nested actions. Most recently, we have studied the control of grasping in the context of a model of the affordances for grasping and adaptation to changes in grasp effectivities (naturally caused by growth, aging, or injury).

Developmental Coordination Disorder: We are working to develop automated means to train and improve manual control by children with Developmental Coordination Disorder, with the specific goal of improving their handwriting. We are using haptic force feedback devices coupled with computer graphics/virtual reality technology to create a manual task at which the children train with parametric levels of support that enables them to gradually improve their performance while maintaining high levels of self-efficacy.

Human bimanual and visual coordination: We have developed a nonlinear coupled oscillator (dynamical systems) model of rhythmic coordinated movement that incorporates perceptual information variables in the coupling of the coordinated movements. The research program entails investigation of these sources of information in visual and haptic control of these actions. The research has extended to the learning of new coordinated movements through perceptual learning (developing sensitivity to new information variables). Most recently, this latter effort has been extended to study of perceptuo-motor learning across the lifespan to discover how rates of learning change over the lifespan with applications to treatment of stroke and other related disorders.

Calibration: In the 1990's, we advocated that calibration should be investigated as the solution to problems in space perception. We have developed a theory of calibration as entailing a mapping among embodied units of perception and action. We have performed extensive studies investigating this theory and the resulting dynamics of calibration.

Affordances and long distance throwing: We have investigated the ability to perceive by hefting the optimal objects for throwing to a maximum distance and how the ability to do this is acquired in concert with acquiring throwing skill. We discovered that the affordance property exhibits the same functional relation between object size and weight as in the classic size-weight illusion. Accordingly, we have hypothesized that the classic illusion actually reflects uniquely human readiness to throw. The research program has now been extended to studies of targeted long distance throwing and visual guidance thereof.

Visual event recognition: We have investigated the visual information used to recognize events, performing extensive psychophysical studies testing sensitive to qualitative variations in trajectory forms. We have approached events as spatial-temporal objects of perception.

Published Papers

Snapp-Childs, W., Mon-Williams, M.A. & Bingham, G.P. (in press). A sensorimotor approach to the training of manual actions in children with DCD. Journal of Child Neurology.

Lee, Y.L., Lind, M., Bingham, N. & Bingham, G.P. (in press). Object recognition using metric shape. Vision Research.

Zhu, Q. & Bingham, G.P. (2011). Human readiness to throw: The size-weight illusion is not an illusion when picking the best objects to throw. Evolution and Human Behavior, 32, 288-293.

Mon-Williams, M. & Bingham, G.P. (2011).Discovering affordances and the spatial structure of reach-to-grasp movements. Experimental Brain Research, 211, 145-160.

Anderson, J. & Bingham, G.P. (2011). Locomoting-to-reach: Information variables and control strategies for nested actions. Experimental Brain Research, 214, 631-644.

Snapp-Childs, W., Wilson, A.D. & Bingham, G.P. (2011). The stability of rhythmic movement coordination depends on relative speed: The Bingham model supported. Experimental Brain Research, 215, 89-100.>

Zhu, Q. & Bingham, G.P. (2010). Hefting to perceive the affordance for long distance throwing is a smart mechanism as shown by perceptual learning while learning to throw. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 36(4), 832-865.

Wilson, A.D., Dobres, A., Bingham, G.P. & Mon-Williams, M. (2010). Learning a coordinated rhythmic movement with task-appropriate coordination feedback. Experimental Brain Research, 205, 513-520.

Lee, Y. & Bingham, G.P. (2010). Large perspective changes (>45°) yield perception of metric shape that allows accurate feedforward reaches-to-grasp and it persists after the optic flow has stopped! Experimental Brain Research, 204, 559-573.

Wilson, A.D., Snapp-Childs, W., Bingham, G.P. (2010). Perceptual learning immediately yields new stable motor coordination. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 36(6), 1508-1514.

Anderson, J. & Bingham, G.P. (2010). A solution to the online guidance problem for targeted reaches: Proportional rate control of visually guided reaching using disparity tau information. Experimental Brain Research, 205(3), 291-306.

Kadihasanoglu, D., Beer, R.D. & Bingham, G.P. (2010) The dependence of braking strategies on optical variables in an evolved model of visually-guided braking. In From Animals to Animats 11: Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 6226, 555-564.

Published abstracts

2011- Coats, R., Snapp-Childs, W., Wilson, A.D. & Bingham, G.P. Changes in perceptual-motor learning across the lifespan: 20, 60, 70 and 80 year olds. Journal of Vision, 11(11), 471.

2011- Snapp-Childs, W., Coats, R., Pan, S., Mon-Williams, M. & Bingham, G.P. (2011). Intrinsic scaling of reaches-to-grasp predicted by affordance-based model: Testing men and women with large and small hands. Journal of Vision, 11(11), 973.

2011- Bingham, G.P., Casserly, E., & Snapp-Childs, W. (2011). Passive tracking versus active control in motor learning. Journal of Vision, 11(11), 960.

2010- Bingham, G.P., Snapp-Childs, W. & Wilson, A.D. (2010) Modeling the visual coordination task in de Rugy et al.: It’s perception, perception, perception. Journal of Vision, 10(7), 1035.

2010- Snapp-Childs, W., Wilson, A.D. & Bingham, G.P. (2010). The stability of rhythmic movement coordination depends on relative speed. Journal of Vision, 10(7), 1037.

2010- Lee, Y.L. & Bingham, G.P. (2010). Large perspective changes (>45°) allow metric shape perception used to recognize quantitatively different objects. Journal of Vision, 10(7), 1002.

2010- Pan, J.S. & Bingham, G.P. (2010). Surface layout and embodied memory: Optic flow and image structure as interacting components in vision. Journal of Vision, 10(7), 45.

2010- Anderson, J. & Bingham, G.P. (2008). Visually guided reaching using proportional rate control of disparity tau: Data and model. Journal of Vision, 8(6), 309a.

2010- Bingham, G.P. & Anderson, J. (2008). Perceptual information for the control of walking-to-reach. Journal of Vision, 8(6), 615a.

2010- Sheehan, S., Bingham, G.P. & Mon-Williams, M. (2008). Task space calibration in Cartesian coordinates. Journal of Vision, 8(6), 481a.

2010- Mon-Williams, M. & Bingham, G.P. (2008). Calibration of grasp orientation (and 'wiggle-room' for errors in object orientation perception). Journal of Vision, 8(6), 301a.

2010- Lee, Y.L., Lind, M. & Bingham, G.P. (2008). Metric shape perception requires a 45° continuous perspective change. Journal of Vision, 8(6), 759a.

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