Learning process of bimanual coordination

There are many systems that need sophisticated skills for operation. Operators must practice very well before actually operating systems, such as cranes, helicopters, and so on. We focus on two hand (bimanual) operation of human in this research. In the bimanual operation, motion of one hand of a low-skilled operator tends to suffer interfering in motion of the other hand. We have already identified human bimanual dynamic characteristics based on experimental results. However, learning process during bimanual operation was not clarified in the previous research. Therefore, in this research, we clarified the learning process by a simple task, i.e., bimanually moving grips on XY - stages back and forth only. In the experiment, subjects simultaneously moved one hand back and forth at 0.3[Hz] and the other at 0.5[Hz]. We divided subjects into two groups: Learning process A (LP A) and learning process B (LP B). Subjects in LP A group conducts only manual operation without mechanical assistance, and those in LP B group conduct manual operation after a training guided by the XY - stages. It has been confirmed that subjects in LP B needed less number of trials than those in LP A to achieve the same performance trajectory.