Human-Human Connected Dyads Learning a Visuomotor Rotation in a Targeted Reaching Task

Little is known about how two people physically coupled together (a dyad) can accomplish tasks. In a pilot study we tested how healthy inexperienced and experienced dyads learn to repeatedly reach to a target and stop while challenged with a 30 degree visuomotor rotation. We employed the Pantograph investigational device that haptically couples partners movements while providing cursor feedback, and we measured the amount and speed of learning to test a prevailing hypothesis: dyads with no experience learn faster than an experienced person coupled with a novice. We found significant straightening of movements for dyads in terms of amount of learning (2.662 +/- 0.102 cm and 2.576 +/- 0.024 cm for the novice-novice and novice-experienced groups) at rapid rates (time constants of 17.83 +/- 2.85 and 18.17.17 +/- 6.72 movements), which was nearly half the learning time as solo individuals' studies. However, we found no differences between the novice-novice and experienced-novice groups, though retrospectively our power was only 3 percent. This pilot study demonstrates new opportunities to investigate the advantages of partner-facilitated learning with solely haptic communication which and can lead to insights on control in human physical interactions and can guide the design of future human-robot-human interaction systems.