Paul TreffnerIndependent Researcher
Paul Treffner
PhD in Experimental Psychology (Ecological Psychology)
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40
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Introduction
Paul Treffner,
Metaffordance.com
Publications
Publications (40)
We investigated how a listener's perceived meaning of a spoken sentence is influenced by the relative timing between a speaker's speech and accompanying hand gestures. Participants viewed a computer-animated character who uttered the phrase, “Put the book there now.” while executing a simple right-handed beat gesture whose location relative to the...
Using a closed-circuit driving track environment, we investigated the influence of using a hands-free mobile (or cell) phone on various biomechanical and perceptual factors that underlie the control of driving. Results showed that in three tasks representative of everyday driving conditions, the perceptual control of action was compromised when com...
Interest is rapidly growing in the hypothesis that natural language emerged from a more primitive set of linguistic acts based primarily on manual activity and hand gestures. Increasingly, researchers are investigating how hemispheric asymmetries are related to attentional and manual asymmetries (i.e., handedness). Both speech perception and produc...
Two experiments addressed the relation between postural stability, perceptual sensitivity, and stability of driving performance. A vehicle was fitted with differential GPS for measuring position and speed, position sensors for measuring brake and accelerator depression, force transducers for measuring door, console and footrest bracing forces, and...
Millikan's discussion of substance concepts in terms of their information-gathering role ignores the analyses of information-based perception and action developed within the tradition of ecological psychology. Her introduction and use without definition of key Gibsonian terms such as “affordance” and “direct perception” leaves those of us investiga...
We explored the problem of actively stabilizing an inherently unstable system. A method for analyzing scale invariant time series was used to examine hand displacement and rod angle of an inverted pendulum actively balanced by normal individuals. Estimation of the Hurst exponent revealed long term fractal correlations for more than 3 min into the p...
Predictions concerning the effects of handedness and attention on bimanual coordination were made from a dynamical model that incorporates the body's lateral asymmetry. Both handedness and the direction of attention (to the left or right) were manipulated in an inphase 1:1 frequency locking task. Left-handed and right-handed participants had to coo...
Handedness and attentional asymmetries in bimanual rhythmic coordination were examined as a function of movement speed. In an in-phase 1:1 frequency locking task, left-handed and right-handed subjects controlled the oscillations of either the right or the left hand so as to contact spatial targets. The task was performed at three frequencies of cou...
We show that left-handers can be considered as a “special” population. We indicate that the asymmetries in performance exhibited by left-handers are due to a basic asymmetry in the underlying coordination dynamics that constrains bimanual coordination. In contrast to the claims of Latash & Anson, we argue that considerable knowledge has been gained...
The symmetrical dynamics of 1:1 rhythmic bimanual coordination may be specified by an order parameter equation involving the relative phase between rhythmic components, and an interlimb coupling which determines the relative attractiveness of in-phase and anti-phase patterns. Symmetry breaking of these dynamics can occur via the difference in the n...
Human handedness was investigated in a 1:1 interlimb rhythmic coordination in which consistent and inconsistent left-handed and right-handed individuals oscillated hand-held pendulums. Mean phase difference (φ
stable) and its standard deviation (
SDφ) were evaluated as functions of mode of coordination (in-phase vs anti-phase) and the symmetry cond...
The component frequencies of rhythmic patterns forming rational ratios, either simple (e.g., 1:2, 1:3) or complex (e.g., 2:3, 2:5), are known as mode locks or resonances. A general theory of resonances is provided by the circle map, the Farey series, and continued fractions. Predictions were evaluated in which rhythms (simple and poly) were establi...
Learning a bimanual rhythmic task is explored from the perspective that motor skill acquisition involves the successive reparameterization of a dynamical control structure in the direction of increasing stability, where the intentional process of reparameterization is itself dynamical. Subjects learned to oscillate pendulums held in the right and l...
A coordinated rhythmic movement pattern is a dynamical activity involving many hidden layers of rhythmic subtasks. To investigate this dynamical substructure, spectroscopic concepts and methods were applied to an interlimb rhythmic movement task requiring 1:1 frequency locking of two hand-held pendulums in 180 degrees phase relation. The pendulums...
A coordinated rhythmic movement pattern is a dynamical activity involving many hidden layers of rhythmic subtasks. To investigate this dynamical substructure, spectroscopic concepts and methods were applied to an interlimb rhythmic movement task requiring 1:1 frequency locking of two hand-held pendulums in 180° phase relation. The pendulums could b...
Abstract (2 leaves) bound with copy. Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Connecticut, 1994. Includes bibliographical references.
