[Influence of preliminary information about mass on anticipatory muscle activity during catching of falling object].

Heavy or light object fell into the cup held between thumb and index fingers of sitting subject. The anticipatory muscle activity and the grip force applied to cup depended on the mass of object while the temporal parameters (time of beginning of muscle activity, duration of the activity, the time of grip force maximum) were constant. The preliminary verbal information about mass of the falling object was enough for predictive force programming. Without such information, i.e. during fall the object of unknown mass the anticipatory activity was planned in expectation of heavy weight.