Transfer of Spatial Contact Information Among Limbs and the Notion of Peripersonal Space in Insects.

Dürr, V.; Schilling, M.

Zusammenfassung

as that part of peripersonal space within which contact-induced spatial estimates lie within the action ranges of more than one limb. Because the action volumes of limbs overlap in this affordance space, spatial information from one limb can be used to control the movement of another limb. Thus, it gives rise to an affordance as known for contact-induced reaching movements and spatial coordination of footfall patterns in stick insects. Finally, we probe the computational properties of the experimentally derived affordance space for pairs of neighboring legs. This is done by use of artificial neural networks that map the posture of one leg into a target posture of another leg with identical foot position.