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Asymmetries in Daily Activities

2020; Springer Nature; Linguagem: Inglês

10.1007/978-981-15-2549-0_4

2191-5318

José Afonso, Cristiana Bessa, Filipe Cabral Pinto, Diogo Ribeiro, Beatriz Moura, Tiago Rocha, Marcus Vinícius, Rui Canário-Lemos, Rafael Peixoto, Filipe Manuel Clemente,

Motor Control and Adaptation

Many daily activities are typified by automated routines, most of which we are not even aware of. From brushing our teeth to holding and eating an apple, to opening doors, to driving, the number of hours spent daily performing highly asymmetric actions is considerable. Overall, human movement does not fit with the notion of perfect symmetry [1]. Writing is perhaps the best example of how asymmetries make our actions more efficient, as humans spend countless hours of their lives writing, especially during the school years. Writing consists of more than dexterity, as it also has implications for posture. For example, in a study conducted by Flatters et al. [2], the authors explored the relationship between body stability and manual dexterity in children (n = 278) aged 3–11 years. The results showed that postural control and manual control are interdependent and that the development of both postural control and manual control has a degree of task-specific codependency.