Anyone who has played a sport or musical instrument has experienced the dreaded plateau, or "ceiling effect," when they cannot progress further. A study published in Science Robotics has found that a robotic exoskeleton can break through the plateau.
The study enlisted pianists who had been playing since early childhood and for more than 10,000 hours to practice a piece until they hit a plateau. The participants were then fitted with a robotic exoskeleton capable of moving each finger up and down four times a second. The pianists improved after a single 30-minute session using the robot hand.
The paper's lead author, Shinichi Furuya, is a scientist at Sony Computer Science Laboratories in Tokyo. His experience as a pianist inspired him to investigate the use of robots for training.
"I'm a pianist, but I [injured] my hand because of overpractising," says Furuya. "I was suffering from this dilemma, between overpractising and the prevention of the injury, so then I thought, I have to think about some way to improve my skills without practising."
Furuya remembered that his teachers used to show him how to play certain pieces by placing their hands over his. "I understood haptically, or more intuitively, without using any words," he says. This made him wonder whether a robot might be able to replicate this effect.
Unfortunately, Furuya does not reveal if the exoskeleton helped him break through his training ceiling.
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