Development of a quantitative evaluation system for visuo-motor control in three-dimensional virtual reality space

Abstract

The process of learning a human’s movement and motor control mechanisms by watching and mimicking human motions was based on visuo-motor control in three dimensional space. However, previous studies regarding the visuo-motor control in three dimensional space have focused on analyzing the tracking tasks along one-dimensional lines or two-dimensional planes using single or multi-joint movements. Therefore, in this study, we developed a new system to quantitatively evaluate visuo-motor control in three-dimensional space based on virtual reality (VR) environment. Our proposed system is designed to analyze circular tracking movements on frontal and sagittal planes in VR space with millimeter level accuracy. In particular, we compared the circular tracking movements under monocular and binocular vision conditions. The results showed that the accuracy of circular tracking movements drops approximately 4.5 times in monocular vision than that in binocular vision on both frontal and sagittal planes. We also found that significant difference can be observed between frontal and sagittal planes for only the accuracy of X-axis in both monocular and binocular visions.

Analysis of Three-Dimensional Circular Tracking Movements Based on Temporo-Spatial Parameters in Polar Coordinates

“…The protocol was approved by the ethics committee of the National Institute of Technology, Gunma College. The subjects were asked to perform a visually guided tracking task in a 3D VR environment [11], which involved tracking a target with a tracer (see Figure 1). The subjects held a hand-held controller Appl.…”

“…The subjects were asked to perform a visually guided tracking task in a 3D VR environment [11], which involved tracking a target with a tracer (see Figure 1). The subjects held a hand-held controller of the HTC Vive HMD to move a tracer in the 3D VR space.…”

“…Previously, we developed a 3D visuomotor control evaluation system in a VR environment [11]. By evaluating the Cartesian coordinate spatial error, we analyzed circular tracking movements on the frontal and sagittal planes.…”

“…Recently, we developed a 3D visuomotor control evaluation system in a virtual reality (VR) environment [11]. This system enabled the analysis of VR space circular tracking movement to the millimeter level accuracy.…”

Analysis of Control Characteristics between Dominant and Non-Dominant Hands by Transient Responses of Circular Tracking Movements in 3D Virtual Reality Space

“…Various target-tracking movements have been studied using a multi-joint upper-limb to analyze human visuo-motor systems . Several studies have used a visual target moving in a straight line [44][45][46][47] or a sinusoidal waveform [26][27][28][29] to examine motor characteristics on a 1-DOF arm movement, and many have used target-tracking on a circular trajectory to investigate the velocity-dependent behaviors of upper-limb movement [33][34][35][36][37][38][39]. The control characteristics of the visuo-motor system have also been examined to ascertain their contribution to intermittency [28][29][30][31][32] and proactiveness in response to a predictable target [26,[39][40][41].…”