State-dependent noise and human balance control

The fluctuations observed in the task of stick balancing at the fingertip exhibit many of the properties predicted to occur in parametric stochastic dynamical systems, namely intermittency, truncated Levy flights and truncated Levy distributions. The development of virtual balancing tasks that involve the interplay between a human and computer and that exhibit the same dynamical properties as seen for stick balancing opens the door for experimental investigations into the nature of the neural motor control mechanisms that underlie these phenomena.