Action and Vision

Vision is so fundamental to our experience of the world that we sometimes forget that the visual system also plays a critical role in the control of the movements we make in that world. Consider what happens, for example, when we perform the deceptively simple act of reaching out and picking up our morning cup of coffee. After identifying our cup among all the other objects on the table, we begin to reach out toward the cup, choosing a trajectory that avoids the box of cereal and the glass of orange juice. At the same time, our fingers begin to conform to the shape of the cup's handle well before we make contact. As our fingers curl around the handle, the initial forces we generate ...