Suboptimal online control of aiming movements in virtual contexts

Area of Science:

• Motor Control
• Human-Computer Interaction
• Virtual Reality

Background:

• Online control processes are crucial for accurate movement.
• Virtual environments can introduce sensory uncertainty.
• The role of visual feedback in motor control is well-established.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate how uncertainty in virtual environments affects online motor control.
• To examine the influence of visual feedback on motor learning and transfer across different task naturalness levels.
• To test the hypothesis that reliance on visual feedback increases with decreasing task naturalness.

Main Methods:

• Participants performed reaching movements in virtual environments with varying degrees of naturalness (Natural, Aligned, Non-aligned).
• Visual feedback was manipulated during an acquisition phase (feedback permitted or not).
• A transfer phase without visual feedback assessed motor performance and accuracy.

Main Results:

• Movement endpoint variability increased with decreasing task naturalness during acquisition, regardless of visual feedback.
• Removing visual feedback in the transfer phase disproportionately impaired movement accuracy for less natural tasks.
• Results contradicted the hypothesis that visual feedback reliance increases with decreasing task naturalness.

Conclusions:

• Display orientation and cursor representation in virtual environments create uncertainty, limiting online control efficacy.
• The central nervous system may prioritize non-visual sensory input when visual feedback is unavailable or requires complex transformation.
• Virtual environment design significantly impacts motor control and learning by altering sensory processing and feedback reliance.