Jove
Visualize
Contact Us
JoVE
x logofacebook logolinkedin logoyoutube logo
ABOUT JoVE
OverviewLeadershipBlogJoVE Help Center
AUTHORS
Publishing ProcessEditorial BoardScope & PoliciesPeer ReviewFAQSubmit
LIBRARIANS
TestimonialsSubscriptionsAccessResourcesLibrary Advisory BoardFAQ
RESEARCH
JoVE JournalMethods CollectionsJoVE Encyclopedia of ExperimentsArchive
EDUCATION
JoVE CoreJoVE BusinessJoVE Science EducationJoVE Lab ManualFaculty Resource CenterFaculty Site
Terms & Conditions of Use
Privacy Policy
Policies

Related Experiment Videos

Illusory gravitational forces affect aimed limb movements.

Jay Pratt1, Richard A Abrams

  • 1Department of Psychology, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M5S 3G3. pratt@psych.utoronto.ca

The Journal of General Psychology
|November 5, 2004
PubMed
Summary
This summary is machine-generated.

Related Concept Videos

You might also read

Related Articles

Articles linked to this work by shared authors, journal, and citation graph.

Sort by
Same author

The mind's average: Unseen, internally generated ensemble representations can guide visual attention.

Attention, perception & psychophysics·2026
Same author

Avoidance of capture by motion onset.

Attention, perception & psychophysics·2026
Same author

Grasping type affects configural encoding in visual working memory.

Experimental brain research·2025
Same author

'Not so intuitive' physics: Orientation supersedes stability in prioritizing attention.

Psychonomic bulletin & review·2025
Same author

Rapid development of inhibitory effects in response to novel features: It's mostly target-feature enhancement.

Psychonomic bulletin & review·2025
Same author

Statistical learning of across-trial regularities weakens emotion-induced blindness.

Cognition & emotion·2025
Same journal

The influence of the Big Five personality traits on daily internal and external aggression tendencies: a dual-pathway mechanism from the perspective of social comparison theory-a diary study.

The Journal of general psychology·2026
Same journal

Cognitive and emotional benefits of piano training: effects on working memory and psychological well-being.

The Journal of general psychology·2026
Same journal

The efficacy of mindfulness based interventions in mitigating stress and fostering enhanced mindfulness among higher education students.

The Journal of general psychology·2026
Same journal

Age and gender differences in the factor structure of cognitive monitoring.

The Journal of general psychology·2026
Same journal

How social context modulates the roles of fairness, reciprocity, and empathy on advantageous inequity aversion.

The Journal of general psychology·2026
Same journal

Predicting a few or many friends in schoolchildren: a machine learning approach.

The Journal of general psychology·2026
See all related articles

Participants in a study on rapid wrist rotation movements demonstrated a virtual gravity illusion. They produced less forceful upward movements, suggesting an overcompensation for the absence of gravity in virtual environments.

Area of Science:

  • Human motor control
  • Perceptual illusions
  • Virtual reality

Background:

  • Understanding human motor control is crucial for designing effective human-computer interactions.
  • Virtual environments lack physical forces like gravity, which can alter movement dynamics.
  • Previous research has explored how humans adapt to altered sensory feedback during movement.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate the influence of perceived gravity on rapid wrist-rotation movements in a virtual environment.
  • To explore the submovement characteristics associated with different movement directions (upward, downward, horizontal).
  • To identify potential mechanisms underlying the virtual gravity illusion.

Main Methods:

  • Participants performed rapid, clockwise wrist-rotation movements to guide a cursor towards a target in a 2D display.

Related Experiment Videos

  • Target positions were varied (above, below, beside the home position) to elicit upward, downward, or horizontal cursor movements.
  • Movement trajectories were parsed into component submovements to analyze force and timing characteristics.

    • Main Results:

    • Upward movements were consistently less forceful, indicated by shorter primary submovements, compared to downward and horizontal movements.
    • This force difference suggests participants modulated their initial motor commands based on perceived gravitational effects.
    • The findings support the existence of a virtual gravity illusion influencing motor control.

    Conclusions:

    • The study demonstrates a novel virtual gravity illusion in human motor control.
    • Participants appear to overcompensate for the anticipated effects of gravity in virtual settings.
    • These findings have implications for the design of more intuitive and realistic virtual reality experiences.