Title
Optimization of two-joint arm movements: a model technique or a result of natural selection?
Abstract
The fossil record of early hominids suggests that their Arm length, and presumably stature and weight, had a tendency to increase. Using the minimum jerk principle and a related formulation of averaged specific power, ASP, with regard to selected two-joint Arm movements, the current paper explores relationships between ASP, hand trajectory length (or Arm length, or body mass) and mean movement speed, deriving relationships which indicate that ASP is proportional to cubic mean movement speed, but inversely proportional to hand trajectory length (or Arm length, or 1/3 power of body mass). Accordingly, an `ecological niche’ is modeled in a three-parameter space. Either ASP maximization for fixed movement time, or ASP minimization for fixed mean movement speed, taken as selective optimization criterion, allows the increasing of human Arm length during evolution, regardless of the arm-to-forearm length ratio.
Year
DOI
Venue
2005
10.1007/s00422-005-0003-2
Biological Cybernetics
Keywords
Field
DocType
Movement Time,Length Ratio,Movement Speed,Hand Path,Movement Extent
Human arm,Control theory,Jerk,Fossil Record,Maximization,Mathematics,Network model,Trajectory
Journal
Volume
Issue
ISSN
93
4
0340-1200
Citations 
PageRank 
References 
1
0.63
2
Authors
5
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Emanuele Lindo Secco17110.43
Luca Valandro210.96
Roberto Caimmi310.96
Giovanni Magenes426854.05
Benedetto Salvato510.63