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Short Term Motor-Skill Acquisition Improves with Size of Self-Controlled Virtual Hands

Visual feedback in general, and from the body in particular, is known to influence the performance of motor skills in humans. However, it is unclear how the acquisition of motor skills depends on specific visual feedback parameters such as the size of performing effector. Here, 21 healthy subjects p...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Ossmy, Ori, Mukamel, Roy
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2017
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5215900/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28056023
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0168520
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author Ossmy, Ori
Mukamel, Roy
author_facet Ossmy, Ori
Mukamel, Roy
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description Visual feedback in general, and from the body in particular, is known to influence the performance of motor skills in humans. However, it is unclear how the acquisition of motor skills depends on specific visual feedback parameters such as the size of performing effector. Here, 21 healthy subjects physically trained to perform sequences of finger movements with their right hand. Through the use of 3D Virtual Reality devices, visual feedback during training consisted of virtual hands presented on the screen, tracking subject’s hand movements in real time. Importantly, the setup allowed us to manipulate the size of the displayed virtual hands across experimental conditions. We found that performance gains increase with the size of virtual hands. In contrast, when subjects trained by mere observation (i.e., in the absence of physical movement), manipulating the size of the virtual hand did not significantly affect subsequent performance gains. These results demonstrate that when it comes to short-term motor skill learning, the size of visual feedback matters. Furthermore, these results suggest that highest performance gains in individual subjects are achieved when the size of the virtual hand matches their real hand size. These results may have implications for optimizing motor training schemes.
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spelling pubmed-52159002017-01-19 Short Term Motor-Skill Acquisition Improves with Size of Self-Controlled Virtual Hands Ossmy, Ori Mukamel, Roy PLoS One Research Article Visual feedback in general, and from the body in particular, is known to influence the performance of motor skills in humans. However, it is unclear how the acquisition of motor skills depends on specific visual feedback parameters such as the size of performing effector. Here, 21 healthy subjects physically trained to perform sequences of finger movements with their right hand. Through the use of 3D Virtual Reality devices, visual feedback during training consisted of virtual hands presented on the screen, tracking subject’s hand movements in real time. Importantly, the setup allowed us to manipulate the size of the displayed virtual hands across experimental conditions. We found that performance gains increase with the size of virtual hands. In contrast, when subjects trained by mere observation (i.e., in the absence of physical movement), manipulating the size of the virtual hand did not significantly affect subsequent performance gains. These results demonstrate that when it comes to short-term motor skill learning, the size of visual feedback matters. Furthermore, these results suggest that highest performance gains in individual subjects are achieved when the size of the virtual hand matches their real hand size. These results may have implications for optimizing motor training schemes. Public Library of Science 2017-01-05 /pmc/articles/PMC5215900/ /pubmed/28056023 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0168520 Text en © 2017 Ossmy, Mukamel http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Ossmy, Ori
Mukamel, Roy
Short Term Motor-Skill Acquisition Improves with Size of Self-Controlled Virtual Hands
title Short Term Motor-Skill Acquisition Improves with Size of Self-Controlled Virtual Hands
title_full Short Term Motor-Skill Acquisition Improves with Size of Self-Controlled Virtual Hands
title_fullStr Short Term Motor-Skill Acquisition Improves with Size of Self-Controlled Virtual Hands
title_full_unstemmed Short Term Motor-Skill Acquisition Improves with Size of Self-Controlled Virtual Hands
title_short Short Term Motor-Skill Acquisition Improves with Size of Self-Controlled Virtual Hands
title_sort short term motor-skill acquisition improves with size of self-controlled virtual hands
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5215900/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28056023
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0168520
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