Extensive experience playing video games may prepare your brain for hand-eye tasks that exceed the complexity of hand-eye tasks in a particular game, according to an article on the Medical News Today website. The article suggests that video games may influence your neural control of visuomotor tasks by developing a more efficient brain network among the sensorimotor parts of your brain.
Definition
Hand-eye coordination is your ability to coordinate your vision with fine motor skills. You start developing this kind of coordination instinctively when you are an infant. Hand-eye coordination involves visually guiding your hands and your eyes while using eye movements that optimize your vision at the same time. A review published in the "Journal of Neurophysiology," indicates that eye movements are "slaves" in hand-eye eye-hand coordination, because hand motions directly affect the external world.
Activities
Daily and specialized human activities involve hand-eye coordination. A carpenter uses this kind of coordination to drive a nail through plywood by positioning the nail and meeting its head with a hammer. A baseball player uses hand-eye coordination to meet a baseball with his bat and try controlling the ball's trajectory. You use your eyes and your hand to puncture food with a fork and bring it to your mouth. Hand-eye coordination allows you to hold a glass while pouring water into it with your other hand.
Sensorimotor Systems
Your sensorimotor systems work together for hand-eye coordination tasks according to specific task-dependent spaciotemporal relationships. The Brain Training Associates website suggests that vision is an important component of your vestibular system. Your vestibular system allows you to maintain balance while standing and moving through space. You might use your proprioceptive system for all hand-eye tasks, because this system helps you sense the movement and position of your muscles. Cognitive systems that include attention contribute to hand-eye coordination and the Optometrists Network website lists "poor hand-eye coordination" among the behaviors that are associated with children with attention deficit disorder.
Gaze
Your gaze is the direction of your vision at any given point. An IBM Almaden Research Center paper suggests that your sequence of eye gaze patterns may start around 70 ms before you move your hand when you point at an object and your eye gaze may make two saccades before landing on the intended target. Saccades are rapid eye movements that jump from one fixation point to another. The "Journal of Neurophysiology" also suggests that you lock your gaze on a target until your hand reaches it during some hand-eye coordination tasks.
Grasp
Hand-eye coordination allows you to adjust your grasp to the shape of objects that you reach for before your hand meets those objects. The "Journal of Neurophysiology" review suggests that efficient grasps require neurological coding of the object's special location, size and shape and transforming these properties into finger and wrist movements. A region in your brain called the "intraparietal cortex" has neurons that code the size, shape and orientation of graspable objects. This part of your brain helps you figure out how to position your hand and fingers.
References
- Journal of Neurophysiology: Spatial Transformations for Eye--Hand Coordination
- Encyclopedia.com: Eye-Hand Coordination
- Brain Training: Vestibular System
- Medical Dictionary: Proprioceptive
- Optometrists Network: Attention Deficit Disorder
- IBM Almaden Research Center: Hand Eye Coordination Patterns in Target Selection
