Chapter 2. Prehension

vi THE GRASPING HAND
including computational neural modelling, motor control, and
cognitive science.
We acknowledge the growing interest and interdisciplinary re-
search into human hand movement. The need for a common vocabu-
lary has been obvious at major symposia and conferences. For ex-
ample, the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIAR)
sponsored a special workshop in London, Canada in May, 1987,
bringing together experts in robotics, artificial intelligence, and human
movement science to share their approaches to prehension (see
Goodale, 1990). Another example was the Dextrous Robot Hand
Workshop in Philadelphia, U.S.A. in April, 1988, at the IEEE
Conference on Robotics and Automation (see Venkataraman and
Iberall, 1990). In both locales, the enthusiastic discussions and
realization of common concerns and goals were offset by the lack of
an integrative framework. Other recent meetings on Hand Function
occurred in Montreal, Canada in May, 1993 and in Ascona,
Switzerland in March, 1994.
We are coauthors in the complete sense: neither one of us alone
could have written this book. Over the last 7 years we have met
together annually, travelling some distance to update this work. One
baby was born, two moves were made from the East to the West coast
of North America, each of us has moved to a new university, and
made other major life changes.
We hope that this book will facilitate effective communication,
and make a contribution toward advancing knowledge on human pre-
hen sion.