Estimation of hand preshaping during human grasping.

A new method for evaluating hand preshaping during reaching-to-grasp movement is proposed. The method makes use of all five fingers in estimation of prehension. The investigation was performed on six healthy subjects grasping three different objects at various positions and orientations. The objects were presented to the subjects by means of a robot, which also induced perturbations in both object position and orientation. Positions of markers attached to the finger-tips and dorsum of the hand were recorded by means of a 3D optical tracking system. In the data analysis, the adjacent fingertips were interconnected, thus obtaining a planar pentagon whose various characteristics were investigated and discussed. New parameters for the evaluation of finger preshaping, such as pentagon surface area, angle between the pentagon and hand normal vectors, and the angle between the pentagon and object normal vectors were introduced. The proposed pentagon approach is expected to be useful in future work when examining grasping abilities of subjects with neuromuscular disorders.