Effects Of Task Conceptualization On Bimanual Coordination

The study of bimanual coordination laid down its original foundation in the 1970s, and has undergone a tremendous evolution in the past decades. The past researches focused mainly on the finding and identification of the elementary coordination constraints that limited performance, including muscular-skeletal, neural, perceptual and cognitive constraints. In the past few years, the perceptual contributions to bimanual coordination received so much argument. The focus is now shifting towards overcoming these coordination constraints by means of task conceptualization that promote the integration of the task components into a meaningful "gestalt". Task conceptualization means that bimanual interference is reduced when two hands' locus are conceptualized into a meaningful symbol. The present study focused on the effects of task conceptualization on bimanual coordination. The roles of bimanual top/down relationship and vision monitoring were explored as well.Two experiments were carried out. The effects of bimanual top/down relationship and task conceptualization on the bimanual coordination were examined in Experiment One. The effects of vision monitoring and task conceptualization on bimanual coordination were investigated in Experiment Two.Some major results were obtained. Firstly, the main effect of task conceptualization was significant. Bimanual tasks were easy to perform if orientation of two hands was same, whereas tasks were difficult if orientation was different. In the latter, bimanual interference was reduced to minimum in task conceptualization situation. Secondly, there was no significant effect of bimanual top/down relationship. The performance of bimanual movements was largely effector independent, but bimanual spatial relationship dependent. Bimanual top/down movements in the frontal plane had no symmetry tendency. Thirdly, vision monitoring had no significant effect on bimanual coordination. The execution of bimanual movements didn't need the guidance of vision. But, the representation of the task was important in bimanual coordination. Lastly, performance of dominant hand exceeded non-dominant hand significantly in all tasks. Handedness and other independent factors interactively influenced the bimanual coordination.It was concluded that task conceptualization was an important cognitive strategy to overcome bimanual interference, and vision monitoring had no significant role on bimanual coordination.