C G Assisi, V K Jirsa, and J A Kelso (2005)
Dynamics of multifrequency coordination using parametric driving: theory and experiment
BIOLOGICAL CYBERNETICS 93(1):6–21.
The coupling of movement behavior and environmental signals has been
extensively studied within the domain of rhythmic coordination tasks.
However, in contrast to most traditional coordination studies, here
we drive the coupled sensorimotor system far beyond the frequency
regime in which these signals may be synchronized. Our goal is to
identify the properties of the coupling between the human subject
and the environment. Earlier studies have shown that the environmental
signal may be parametrically coupled to the effectors. A necessary
feature of parametrically driven oscillators is the existence of
stable 1:1 and 1:2 coordination modes. Here, we test this prediction
experimentally using a coordination paradigm in which subjects were
asked to coincide peak finger flexion with an auditory metronome
beat. The rate of the metronome was increased in steps of 0.5 Hz
from 2.5 Hz to 12 Hz. It was observed that the subjects shifted
involuntarily from a 1:1 to a 1:2 coordination mode at high driving
frequencies, as predicted. These results are examined in the context
of an extended form of the Haken-Kelso-Bunz (Haken et al. 1985)
model (HKB) for bimanual coordination, which includes a parametric
driving term (Jirsa et al. 2000). Unimanual coordination is treated
as a special case of this extended model. An important feature of
the HKB model is bistability and the presence of a phase transition
from an anti-phase mode to in-phase mode of coordination. Our description
of unimanual coordination leads to a mechanism for phase transitions
that is distinct from that seen in the HKB model. The transition
is mediated by the dynamics of both the amplitude and the phase
of the oscillator. More generally, we propose the existence of two
types of transitions in our extended theory, that is, phase-mediated
and amplitude-mediated transitions. Both have characteristic features;
in particular, their transients are mutually orthogonal in the plane
spanned by the amplitude and phase of the oscillator. The analytical
and numerical results of our theoretical model are demonstrated
to compare favorably with our experimental results.,