Dr Alessia Noccaro - Newcastle University

“Can you give me a hand?” How many times have you said it? Now, imagine if you could give yourself the extra hand you need. Wouldn’t it be awesome? This fellowship will investigate to what extent this is possible. Can the human brain learn how to skilfully move an extra arm together with its own – and to what extent this ability can be readily transferred to real-life contexts?

The emerging field of human movement augmentation aims to expand human abilities over what biological limbs are capable of. However, research in the last few years has focused on developing the robotic limbs themselves. Researchers have designed extra robotic limbs, including arms, fingers, and legs; and studied how they can be controlled and perceived as naturally as possible. Few works have looked at the brain’s ability to manage such movement augmentation by analysing behavioural data and cortical activity. Furthermore, these projects have involved highly simplified actions performed in a virtual environment and in sessions of short duration. This project will move a step closer to augmenting movement.

This project will apply our knowledge of human motor control to movement augmentation. It will study the extent to which people can learn movement augmentation and strategies that can boost such learnings. Then, it will test how helpful these abilities are in real life. This means firstly, executing complex actions beyond the well-controlled tasks usually set up in laboratory experiments, such as reaching a target. Secondly, it will require adapting the extra limb’s movement to environmental conditions, such as wind disturbing movement or the distortion of visual feedback provided by a mirror.