The Task Dynamics of Throwing to a Maximum Distance

In my last post I went over the formal concept of task dynamics as a way of analysing a task to identify the affordances in that task. This post will examine the task dynamics of projectile motion and relate these to throwing to a maximum distance.This version of the task has been studied in detail over the last few years. There is another version of the task, namely throwing to hit a target (same dynamic, different parameters, therefore same task) and we will get to that later; we're working now on data from this task.

Part of my goal here is to lay out the research programme you should be following, if you want to study anything to do with perception and action. If you are interested in movement, and you aren't doing this kind of analysis as part of your work, then, I will suggest, you are doing it wrong. As we will see in future posts, this level of detail isn't just playing with numbers; a formal understanding of the underlying dynamics governing the task we are studying is utterly crucial if we want to be able to understand what people are doing, rather than simply describe their behaviour. 

Also it's fun :)