Noise-induced phase transition in the model of human virtual stick balancing

Humans face the task of balancing dynamic systems near an unstable equilibrium repeatedly throughout their lives. Much research has been aimed at understanding the mechanisms of intermittent control in the context of human balance control. The present paper deals with one of the recent developments in the theory of human intermittent control, namely, the double-well model of noise-driven control activation. We demonstrate that the double-well model can reproduce the whole range of experimentally observed distributions under different conditions. Moreover, we show that a slight change in the noise intensity parameter leads to a sudden shift of the action point distribution shape, that is, a phase transition is observed.