Evidence for a fundamental property of steering

Abstract

In this paper, a general and fundamental property of steering is demonstrated: It is shown that steering corrections generally follow bell-shaped profiles of steering rate. The finding is strongly related to what is already known about reaching movements. Also, a strong linear relationship was found between the maximum steering wheel rate and the steering wheel deflection, something that indicates a constant movement time for the correction. Furthermore, by closer examination of those corrections that cannot be described by a single bell-shaped rate profile, it was found that they typically can be described using two or, in some cases three or four, overlapping profiles, something which relates to superposition of motor primitives.