Robust control of skilled actions requires the flexible combination of multiple sources of information. Here we examined the role of gaze during high-speed locomotor steering and in particular the role of feedback from the visible road edges. Participants were required to maintain one of three lateral positions on the road when one or both edges…

The magneto-kinematic effect has been previously observed for the case of a rotating permanent magnet. Using this effect, this paper presents a novel method for calculation of the induced electromotive force (EMF) in a conductor for the case of rectilinear motion of a 25.4 mm diameter permanently magnetized sphere (magnetic dipole) past the…

I describe an elementary way of introducing electromagnetic field momentum. By considering a system of a long solenoid and line charge, the dependence of the field momentum on the electric and magnetic fields can be deduced. I obtain the electromagnetic angular momentum for a point charge and magnetic monopole pair partially through dimensional…

In this paper, we revisit, theoretically and experimentally, the fall of a folded U-chain and of a pile-chain. The model calculation implies the division of the whole system into two subsystems of variable mass, allowing us to explore the role of tensional contact forces at the boundary of the subsystems. This justifies, for instance, that the…

Active head turns to the left and right have recently been shown to influence numerical cognition by shifting attention along the mental number line. In the present study, we found that passive whole-body motion influences numerical cognition. In a random-number generation task (Experiment 1), leftward and downward displacement of participants…

This article presents an experimental investigation of kinematics of verb sign production in American Sign Language (ASL) using motion capture data. The results confirm that event structure differences in the meaning of the verbs are reflected in the kinematic formation: for example, in the telic verbs (throw, hit), the end-point of the event is…

The experiments described in this paper have two goals. The first goal is to show how students can perform simple but fundamental measurements of objects moving through simple liquids (such as water, oil, or honey). In doing so, students can verify Stokes' law, which governs the motion of spheres through simple liquids, and see how it fails at…

White (2012) proposed that kinematic features in a visual percept are matched to stored representations containing information regarding forces (based on prior haptic experience) and that information in the matched, stored representations regarding forces is then incorporated into visual perception. Although some elements of White's (2012) account…

To learn motion verbs, infants must be sensitive to the specific event features lexicalized in their language. One event feature important for the acquisition of English motion verbs is the manner of motion. This article examines when and how infants detect manners of motion across variations in the figure's path. Experiment 1 shows that 13- to…

Preferential attention to biological motion can be seen in typically developing infants in the first few days of life and is thought to be an important precursor in the development of social communication. We examined whether children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) aged 3-7 years preferentially attend to point-light displays depicting…

To investigate how people with Autism are affected by the presence of goals during imitation, we conducted a study to measure movement kinematics and eye movements during the imitation of goal-directed and goal-less hand movements. Our results showed that a control group imitated changes in movement kinematics and increased the level that they…

We discuss the angular velocity ([image omitted]) and angular acceleration ([image omitted]) associated with a particle in rectilinear motion with constant acceleration. The discussion was motivated by an observation that students and even teachers have difficulty in ascribing rotational motion concepts to a particle when the trajectory is a…

We consider two different forms for a relativistic version of a linear restoring force. The pair comes from taking Hooke's law to be the force appearing on the right-hand side of the relativistic expressions: d"p"/d"t" or d"p"/d["tau"]. Either formulation recovers Hooke's law in the non-relativistic limit. In addition to these two forces, we…

A particle is thrown tangentially on a surface. It is shown that for some surfaces and for special initial velocities the thrown particle immediately leaves the surface, and for special conditions it never leaves the surface. The conditions for leaving the surface are investigated. The problem is studied for a surface with the cross-section y =…

In this paper we demonstrate a surprising aspect of quantum mechanics that is accessible to an undergraduate student. We discuss probability backflow for an electron in a constant magnetic field. It is shown that even for a wavepacket composed entirely of states with negative angular momentum the effective angular momentum can take on positive…