Action Laboratory

Motor skills such as throwing a ball, eating with knife and fork, or dancing are uniquely human and key to functional behavior. Optimizing the acquisition of skill and preventing or reverting the degradation of motor control requires rigorous quantitative understanding. The Action Lab analyzes how humans control their voluntary movements and how this control is engendered and constrained by the dynamics of the body and the task. One research focus is on the manipulation of complex objects and physical interaction with robotic devices. We combine analysis of behavioral data with computational modeling. This work has applications for performance enhancement and recovery after neurological injury and also for human-robot interactions.