Chapter 2. Prehension

Chapter 8 - Constraints on Human Prehension 327
into other hands, such as dextrous robot hands and prosthetic hands.
These devices would just need their own computational nervous
system to perform the mapping that the central nervous system does
for the human hand. The mechanical hand, while seemingly different
(made of different materials, having different characteristic
workspaces, etc.), must obey many of the same constraints (laws of
physics, achieve goals). With a dextrous multi-fingered hand, multiple
grasping solutions are possible, and only additional constraints will
guide a controller in making choices. Each controller is faced with the
question of how best to use its hand’s features in relation to the
anticipated object properties and predicted interaction outcome, in
order to achieve task goals. By separating out levels of analysis, the
study of human hand functionality can be related to dextrous robot
hand functionality.