About

Sensorimotor computation forms the bridge between abstract information processing in the human brain and the concrete reality of the physical world. It studies how the brain perceives the state of its external environment (using exteroceptive sensors such as vision and touch) and the state of its own body (using proprioceptive sensors such as muscle spindles and the vestibular organs), and takes action by controlling muscles.

Human sensorimotor systems normally perform so flawlessly that it is easy to overlook the extraordinary sophistication behind ordinary actions such as looking at an object with our eyes and picking it up with our hand. Indeed, these actions appear simple to us precisely because our brains and bodies have evolved over hundreds of millions of years to perform complex sensorimotor tasks without much conscious thought. The sophistication only becomes apparent when we try to reproduce these “ordinary” skills in robots, or when we observe the development of these skills in childhood and their loss in the elderly.

The scientific goal of this project is to model the complex computations, sensing, and motor actions that are required to control our eyes and hand when we look at or reach out for an object of interest. Specifically, we will construct computational models of how the eyes and head are moved to direct gaze to objects of interest in the environment, and how the hand manipulates objects. These models will be firmly based on neurobiological measurements of how humans actually perform these tasks. The results will have important implications for applied clinical research and therefore for human health in the long term.

This project builds on the momentum generated by a highly successful workshop held at the Peter Wall Institute on the same topic which helped to identify and refine the themes of this project.

"Sensorimotor Computation" is funded by a Major Thematic Grant from the Peter Wall Institute for Advanced Studies at the University of British Columbia, awarded to Principal Investigator Dinesh Pai, Computer Science.