The effect of intervening forces on finger force perception

The purpose of the present study was to investigate the effect of intervening forces on the estimation of finger forces. To do this, we introduced intervening forces during a delayed force matching task. The basic idea in the present study was that when a reference force (or to-be-remembered force) is followed by another force, this second force (i.e., intervening force) will interfere with the estimation of the reference force. Subjects performed a modified delayed force matching task using the index finger of their dominant hand. This study consisted of eight experimental conditions which combined two reference forces (i.e., 10 and 30% MVCs) with four intervening forces (i.e., No, Half, Same and Double the reference force). The main finding of the present study was that the matching performance was systematically affected by intervening forces. The results showed that the reference force was underestimated in the condition where the intervening force was half the reference force, and overestimated in the condition where the intervening force was double the reference force. When the reference and intervening forces were the same, no intervening force effect was found. The effect of intervening force was explained by a distortion of force memory.