SMRT Reading Group


This is the web page of the reading group SMRT (SensoriMotor Reading and Thinking).
To remember the acronym, think of Homer Simpson singing, "I am so smart, I am so smart, S-M-R-T."

SMRT weekly reading group: Thursdays, 10:45-11:45, ICICS 202


If you want to be informed about upcoming papers, please subscribe to the mailing list by sending a message to majordomo@cs.ubc.ca, with the body "subscribe smrt-l".

The topic for the SMRT reading group is sensorimotor computation. Each week someone presents a paper/tutorial or their current research, or some mix of these.

A schedule of upcoming papers can be found below under the heading Upcoming Papers. Under the heading Finished Papers is a log of earlier topics. If you want more information, or to be added to the schedule, please contact Misha Fine.


Potential Papers to Read

This semester the focus will be on motor control of reaching and grasping movements. We will also consider some papers on control of tendon driven systems, in humans and robots. This is motivated in part by the biomechanics of the human hands and eyes, and in part by the tendon driven robots we have at UBC (home-grown robotic eyes and fingers, PHANToM and Force Dimension haptic devices). We will soon receive a new Barrett arm and hand as well. A second potential focus is object manipulation with hands.

  • The tendon network of the fingers performs anatomical computation at a macroscopic scale. Valero-Cuevas, F.J.; Jae-Woong Yi; Brown, D.; McNamara, R.V.; Paul, C.; Lipson, H.; [External link]
  • The coordination of movement: optimal feedback control and beyond. Jörn Diedrichsen, Reza Shadmehr, Richard B. Ivry [External link]
  • The contribution of muscle properties in the control of explosive movements. Arthur van Soest, Maarten Bobbert [External link]
  • Cerebellar motor learning versus cerebellar motor timing: the climbing fibre story Rodolfo R. Llinas [External link]
  • Organization of motor output in slow finger movements in man. A B Vallbo and J Wessberg [External link]
  • The Action of Two Joint Muscles: The legacy of W.P. Lombard. Arthur D. Kuo [External link]

Upcoming Papers

  • March 23, 2013: Prashant Sachdeva presents Apprenticeship learning via inverse reinforcement learning. Pieter Abbeel and Andrew Y. Ng [External link]

Finished Papers

  • March 2, 2013: Ben Humberston presents Reduced Dimensionality Control for the ACT Hand. Mark Malhotra, Eric Rombokas, Evangelos Theodorou, Emanuel Todorov, and Yoky Matsuoka [External link]
  • April 18, 2013: Misha Fine presents Anatomically Correct Testbed Hand Control: Muscle and Joint Control Strategies. Ashish D. Deshpande, Jonathan Ko, Dieter Fox and Yoky Matsuoka [External link]
  • March 28, 2013: Debanga R. Neog presents Linear Bellman combination for control of character animation. Marco da Silva, Fredo Durand and Jovan Popovic [External link]
  • March 14, 2013: Ben Humberston presents Compositionality of optimal control laws. E. Todorov [External link]
  • February 21-28, 2013: Misha Fine presents An introduction to stochastic control theory, path integrals and reinforcement learning. Hilbert J. Kappen [External link]
  • February 7, 2013: Sang Hoon Yeo presents Coordinated control of eye and hand movements in dynamic reaching. S.F.W. Neggers and H. Bekkering [External link]
  • September 28, 2013: Sang Hoon Yeo presents Goal-Directed Aiming: Two Components but Multiple Processes. Digby Elliott, Steve Hansen, Lawrence E.M. Grierson and James Lyons [External link]
  • September 21, 2013: Ben Humberston presents Independence of perceptual and sensorimotor predictions in the size–weight illusion. J. Randall Flanagan and Michael A. Beltzner [External link]
  • July 10, 2012: Ben Humberston presents Biological Learning and Control (Chapter 6) Reza Shadmehr and Sandro Mussa-Ivaldi [External link]
  • June 26, 2012: Misha Fine presents Biological Learning and Control (Chapter 5) Reza Shadmehr and Sandro Mussa-Ivaldi [External link]
  • June 19, 2012: Daniel Troniak presents Biological Learning and Control (Chapter 4) Reza Shadmehr and Sandro Mussa-Ivaldi [External link]
  • May 29, 2012: Sang Hoon Yeo presents some highlights from NCM.
  • May 15, 2012: Debanga R. Neog presents Biological Learning and Control (Chapter 3) Reza Shadmehr and Sandro Mussa-Ivaldi [External link]
  • May 8, 2012: Prof. Pai presents some highlights from NCM.
  • May 1, 2012: Ben Humberston presents Biological Learning and Control (Chapter 2) Reza Shadmehr and Sandro Mussa-Ivaldi [External link]
  • April 3, 2012: Debanga Raj Neog presents Biological Learning and Control (Chapter 1) Reza Shadmehr and Sandro Mussa-Ivaldi [External link]
  • March 27, 2012: Daniel Troniak presents Factors influencing the force control during precision grip G. Westling and R. S. Johansson [External link]
    Roles of glabrous skin receptors and sensorimotor memory in automatic control of precision grip when lifting rougher or more slippery objects R. S. Johansson and G. Westling [External link]
  • March 13, 2012: Misha Fine presents Learning course Adjustments during arm movements with reversed sensitivity derivatives Mohamed N Abdelghani and Douglas B Tweed [External link]
  • February 28, 2012: Ben Humberston presents Dual adaptation supports a parallel architecture of motor memory. Lee JY, Schweighofer N. [External link]
  • February 14, 2012: Daniel Troniak presents A Single-Rate Context-Dependent Learning Process Underlies Rapid Adaptation to Familiar Object Dynamics. James N. Ingram, Ian S. Howard, J. Randall Flanagan, Daniel M. Wolpert [External link]
  • February 7, 2012: Ben Humberston presents Motor Learning and Consolidation: The Case of Visuomotor Rotation. John W. Krakauer.
    Chapter in: Progress in Motor Control. A Multidisciplinary Perspective Dagmar Sternad [External link]
  • January 31, 2012: Martin Lesmana presents Principles of sensorimotor learning. Daniel M. Wolpert, Jörn Diedrichsen, J. Randall Flanagan [External link]
  • November 30, 2011: Professor Pai presents Extensor mechanism of the fingers. I. A quantitative geometric study. Marc Garcia-Elias, Kai-Nan An, Lawrence Berglund, Ronald L. Linscheid, William P. Cooney III, Edmund Y.S. Chao. [External link]
    Mitsunori Tada presents The Functional Anatomy of the Extensor Mechanism of the Finger. Crampton Harrisjr.; Guy L. Rutledgejr. [External link]
  • November 23, 2011: Sang Hoon Yeo presents (continued from last week) Visuo-motor coordination and internal models for object interception. Myrka Zago, Joseph McIntyre, Patrice Senot and Francesco Lacquaniti [External link]
  • November 16, 2011: Sang Hoon Yeo presents Visuo-motor coordination and internal models for object interception. Myrka Zago, Joseph McIntyre, Patrice Senot and Francesco Lacquaniti [External link]
  • November 9, 2011: Sang Hoon Yeo presents The use of overlapping submovements in the control of rapid hand movements. Novak KE, Miller LE, Houk JC. [External link]
    Martin lesmana presents Submovements grow larger, fewer, and more blended during stroke recovery. Rohrer B, Fasoli S, Krebs HI, Volpe B, Frontera WR, Stein J, Hogan N. [External link]
  • November 2, 2011: Debanga Raj presents Exploiting Variable Stiffness in Explosive Movement Tasks. David Braun, Matthew Howard, Sethu Vijayakumar [External link]
  • October 26, 2011: Ye Fan presents Coding and use of tactile signals from the fingertips in object manipulation tasks. Roland S. Johansson and J. Randall Flanagan [External link]
  • October 19, 2011: Sang Hoon Yeo presents Control Strategies in object manipulation tasks. J Randall Flanagan, Miles C Bowman, Roland S Johansson. [External link]
    Martin lesmana presents Inferring limb coordination strategies from trajectory kinematics. J.M. Hollerbach, C.G. Atkeson. [External link]
  • October 12, 2011: Professor Pai provided some background on the neural control of movement