Virtual Hand Feedback Reduces Reaction Time in an Interactive Finger Reaching Task

Brand, Johannes; Piccirelli, Marco; Hepp-Reymond, Marie-Claude; Morari, Manfred; Michels, Lars; Eng, Kynan

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0154807

“…Similarly, visual augmentation by marking fingers that have to move together to produce symmetric or parallel tapping patterns does not affect performance 45 . Moreover, previous studies have suggested that movement execution is modulated by the level of abstraction of visual effector feedback 46 , 47 . Our study did not abstract visual direction information, but, through the mirror setup, provided participants with visual feedback that appeared to reflect the real hands.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Abstract spatial, but not body-related, visual information guides bimanual coordination

Brandes

¹

,

Rezvani

²

,

Heed

³

2017

Sci Rep

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Visual spatial information is paramount in guiding bimanual coordination, but anatomical factors, too, modulate performance in bimanual tasks. Vision conveys not only abstract spatial information, but also informs about body-related aspects such as posture. Here, we asked whether, accordingly, visual information induces body-related, or merely abstract, perceptual-spatial constraints in bimanual movement guidance. Human participants made rhythmic, symmetrical and parallel, bimanual index finger movements with the hands held in the same or different orientations. Performance was more accurate for symmetrical than parallel movements in all postures, but additionally when homologous muscles were concurrently active, such as when parallel movements were performed with differently rather than identically oriented hands. Thus, both perceptual and anatomical constraints were evident. We manipulated visual feedback with a mirror between the hands, replacing the image of the right with that of the left hand and creating the visual impression of bimanual symmetry independent of the right hand’s true movement. Symmetrical mirror feedback impaired parallel, but improved symmetrical bimanual performance compared with regular hand view. Critically, these modulations were independent of hand posture and muscle homology. Thus, visual feedback appears to contribute exclusively to spatial, but not to body-related, anatomical movement coding in the guidance of bimanual coordination.

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“…Based on these results, we previously experimented on adults comparing different forms of online feedback during visually guided finger movements in a finger-reaching task. We found that providing hand, virtual hand (VH) or shadow hand (SH) instead of point light (PL) or cursor (CU) feedback resulted in significantly faster movement initiation for three out of the four comparisons (not for VH vs. PL; Brand et al, 2016 ). Hence, the results of our previous study suggested that hand feedback might play an important role in visually guided movement control and in its underlying brain processes.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 89%

“…The experiment setup is visualized in Figure 1 . Parts of the setup have previously been described in our previous study (Brand et al, 2016 ). The experiment was performed with subjects lying in a wide bore (70 cm diameter) magnetic resonance scanner.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…We found differences between the four action conditions in three psychophysical parameters: finger movement amplitude, extent error, and reaction time. Some of these results were previously presented (Brand et al, 2016). To remove the influence of behavioral effects on the fMRI data, we added a movement amplitude regressor of no interest as a parametric modulator to the first-level fMRI model.…”

Section: Behavioral and Eye-tracking Datamentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Brain Activation During Visually Guided Finger Movements

Brand

¹

,

Piccirelli

²

,

Hepp-Reymond

³

et al. 2020

Front. Hum. Neurosci.

Self Cite

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Computer interaction via visually guided hand movements often employs either abstract cursor-based feedback or virtual hand (VH) representations of varying degrees of realism. The effect of changing this visual feedback in virtual reality settings is currently unknown. In this study, 19 healthy right-handed adults performed index finger movements ("action") and observed movements ("observation") with four different types of visual feedback: a simple circular cursor (CU), a point light (PL) pattern indicating finger joint positions, a shadow cartoon hand (SH) and a realistic VH. Finger movements were recorded using a data glove, and eye-tracking was recorded optically. We measured brain activity using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Both action and observation conditions showed stronger fMRI signal responses in the occipitotemporal cortex compared to baseline. The action conditions additionally elicited elevated bilateral activations in motor, somatosensory, parietal, and cerebellar regions. For both conditions, feedback of a hand with a moving finger (SH, VH) led to higher activations than CU or PL feedback, specifically in early visual regions and the occipitotemporal cortex. Our results show the stronger recruitment of a network of cortical regions during visually guided finger movements with human hand feedback when compared to a visually incomplete hand and abstract feedback. This information could have implications for the design of visually guided tasks involving human body parts in both research and application or trainingrelated paradigms.

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“…Similarly, visual augmentation by marking fingers that have to move together to produce symmetric or parallel tapping patterns does not affect performance (Mechsner, 2004). Moreover, previous studies have suggested that movement execution is modulated by the level of abstraction of visual effector feedback (Brand et al, 2016;Veilleux & Proteau, 2010). Our study did not abstract visual direction information, but, through the mirror setup, provided participants with visual feedback that appeared to reflect the real hands.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 70%

Abstract spatial, but not body-related, visual information guides bimanual coordination

Brandes

¹

,

Rezvani

²

,

Heed

³

2016

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Visual spatial information is paramount in guiding bimanual coordination, but anatomical factors, too, modulate performance in bimanual tasks. Vision conveys not only abstract spatial information, but also informs about body-related aspects such as posture. Here, we asked whether, accordingly, visual information induces body-related, or merely abstract, perceptual-spatial constraints in bimanual movement guidance. Human participants made rhythmic, symmetrical and parallel, bimanual index finger movements with the hands held in the same or different orientations. Performance was more accurate for symmetrical than parallel movements in all postures, but additionally when homologous muscles were concurrently active, such as when parallel movements were performed with differently rather than identically oriented hands. Thus, both perceptual and anatomical constraints were evident. We manipulated visual feedback with a mirror between the hands, replacing the image of the right with that of the left hand and creating the visual impression of bimanual symmetry independent of the right hand's true movement. Symmetrical mirror feedback impaired parallel, but improved symmetrical bimanual performance compared with regular hand view. Critically, these modulations were independent of hand posture and muscle homology. Thus, visual feedback appears to contribute exclusively to spatial, but not to body-related, anatomical movement coding in the guidance of bimanual coordination.Whether we type on a keyboard, applaud, or ride a bike -bimanual coordination is crucial in many of our everyday activities. Therefore, the principles that guide bimanual coordination have received much interest, not least to inform treatment to restore regular bimanual function in clinical settings. Beyond therapeutic considerations, coordinative action can be viewed as an ecologically valid model to understand the principles of movement planning 1 . Accordingly, experiments have studied the factors that constrain bimanual movement execution. A prominent and consistent finding has been that humans can perform symmetrical movements -with symmetry usually defined relative to the sagittal body midline -with higher precision and at higher speeds than parallel movements [2][3][4] . During symmetrical movements, the two effectors move towards opposite sides of space; for instance, one hand moves to the right while the other concurrently moves to the left. Conversely, parallel movements implicate movements towards the same direction of space; for instance, both hands synchronously move to the left or to the right.The symmetry bias has been demonstrated across a variety of effectors and movement types, such as finger flexion and extension 5,6

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Virtual Hand Feedback Reduces Reaction Time in an Interactive Finger Reaching Task

Cited by 9 publications

References 19 publications

Abstract spatial, but not body-related, visual information guides bimanual coordination

Abstract spatial, but not body-related, visual information guides bimanual coordination

Brain Activation During Visually Guided Finger Movements

Abstract spatial, but not body-related, visual information guides bimanual coordination

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