Meeting Abstract

98.6  Wednesday, Jan. 7  Trade-offs between force and accuracy in human performance IRSCHICK, DJ*; HENNINGSEN, J; University of Massachusetts at Amherst irschick@bio.umass.edu

A simple yet profound functional trade-off involves force and accuracy. High levels of force would seem to necessarily result in lower levels of accuracy, and vice versa, but testing this functional trade-off is challenging. We have been studying human hammering as a means to understand this trade-off. Specifically, we are interested in the relative roles of target sizes, such as different sizes of nails, and the relative ability of individuals to strike such targets with accuracy. Human hammering is unique kind of performance because it involves high levels of force but must necessarily be accurate. We filmed a large sample of able adults hammering in different conditions and measured both their relative hammering performance (i.e., velocity, acceleration), as well as their ability to hit a target accurately. We are also interested in differences both among individuals (i.e., different individual strategies) and among sexes (men vs. women). Individual strategies seem to diminish this trade-off somewhat, implying that human performance may be difficult to extrapolate to animal performance because of the high level of choice involved.