Journal article
Kinesthetic perception of visually specified axes
Experimental brain research, Vol.149(1), pp.40-47
03/2003
DOI: 10.1007/s00221-002-1333-0
PMID: 12592502
Abstract
The purpose of this research was to determine whether human subjects could align the forearm more accurately to the orientation of an external object than to earth-fixed vertical and trunk-fixed anterior-posterior (a-p) axes. Ten young adults aligned the unseen forearm to earth-fixed vertical and trunk-fixed a-p axes, and to a visually presented rod (external visual axis) held by an experimenter in various oblique vertical and horizontal orientations. The head and trunk orientations were varied by left/right lateral flexion when aligning the forearm to vertical plane axes and by rotation about the vertical axis when aligning the forearm to horizontal plane axes. Perceptual errors for aligning the forearm to vertical plane axes were much lower when aligning the forearm to earth-fixed vertical than to an external visual axis positioned in a vertical plane. Furthermore, the perceptual errors for aligning the forearm to the visually presented rod were correlated with rod orientation while errors for aligning the forearm to vertical while viewing the rod were unaffected by rod orientations. Clearly, human subjects cannot use an oblique external visually presented axis to provide a frame of reference for accurate perception of forearm orientation in vertical planes. Perceptual errors were similar for aligning the forearm to the horizontal trunk-fixed a-p axis and external visual axis when head and trunk orientation were varied. These perceptual errors were not correlated with rod orientation in the horizontal plane, giving no evidence of bias toward the trunk or external visual axis in horizontal plane perception of forearm orientation. Thus, humans can use either the trunk-fixed a-p axis or the visually specified orientation of an external object as a frame of reference for the kinesthetic system to specify forearm orientation in the horizontal plane.
Details
- Title: Subtitle
- Kinesthetic perception of visually specified axes
- Creators
- Warren G Darling - University of IowaRobert Bartelt - University of Iowa
- Resource Type
- Journal article
- Publication Details
- Experimental brain research, Vol.149(1), pp.40-47
- DOI
- 10.1007/s00221-002-1333-0
- PMID
- 12592502
- ISSN
- 0014-4819
- eISSN
- 1432-1106
- Grant note
- R01 NS34895 / NINDS NIH HHS P01 NS19632 / NINDS NIH HHS
- Language
- English
- Date published
- 03/2003
- Academic Unit
- Physical Therapy and Rehabilitation Science; Health and Human Physiology
- Record Identifier
- 9984259646202771
Metrics
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