Quantitative Assessment of Infant Reaching Movements

Abstract

We have identified a fundamental property of human motor behavior as a tight coupling of the curvature-speed relationship in the reaching movements of 5- to 9-month-old infants. This relationship termed a movement unit, occurs regardless of the distance or duration of the reach and in spite of the developmental change that occurs in grasping during this period. Movement unit durations are tightly clustered around 200 ms regardless of overall duration or distance or the position of the unit in the reach.

The curvature-speed coupling has been identified by others in adult reaching and handwriting. Models of biological motor control must account for this invariant relationship.