Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 August 2002
We review studies on catching that reveal internalization of physics for action control. In catching free-falling balls, an internal model of gravity is used by the brain to time anticipatory muscle activation, modulation of reflex responses, and tuning of limb impedance. An internal model of the expected momentum of the ball at impact is used to scale the amplitude of anticipatory muscle activity. [Barlow; Hecht; Shepard]