Time for Space and the Stability of Prospective Control: Reaching-to-Grasp Gibson

Abstract

Gibson formulated an approach to goal-directed behavior using prospective information in the context of visually guided locomotion and manual behavior. The former was Gibson's paradigm case, but it is the rapidity of targeted reaching that has provided the special challenge for stable control. Recent treatments of visually guided reaching assume that internal forward models are required to generate stable behavior given delays caused by neural transmission times. Internal models are representations of the sort eschewed by Gibson in favor of prospective information. Reaching is usually described as guided using relative distances of hand and target, but prospective information is usually temporal rather than spatial. We describe proportional rate control models that incorporate time dimensioned prospective information and show they remain stable in the face of delays. The use of time-dimensioned prospective information removes the need for internal models for stable behavior despite neural transmission delays and allows Gibson's approach to prevail.