Effects of aging on pointing movements under restricted visual feedback conditions
Liancun Zhang1, Jiajia Yang2, Yoshinobu Inai2
1Intelligent Robotics Institute, School of Mechatronical Engineering, Beijing Institute of Technology, 5 Nandajie, Zhongguancun, Haidian, Beijing 100081, China; Key Laboratory of Biomimetic Robots and Systems, Ministry of Education, State Key Laboratory of Intelligent Control and Decision of Complex Systems, Beijing Institute of Technology, 5 Nandajie, Zhongguancun, Haidian, Beijing 100081, China; Graduate School of Natural Science and Technology, Okayama University, 3-1-1 Tsushima-Naka, Kita-Ku, Okayama 700-8530, Japan.
Abstract:
The goal of this study was to investigate the effects of aging on pointing movements under restricted visual feedback of hand movement and target location. Fifteen young subjects and fifteen elderly subjects performed pointing movements under four restricted visual feedback conditions that included full visual feedback of hand movement and target location (FV), no visual feedback of hand movement and target location condition (NV), no visual feedback of hand movement (NM) and no visual feedback of target location (NT). This study suggested that Fitts' law applied for pointing movements of the elderly adults under different visual restriction conditions. Moreover, significant main effect of aging on movement times has been found in all four tasks. The peripheral and central changes may be the key factors for these different characteristics. Furthermore, no significant main effects of age on the mean accuracy rate under condition of restricted visual feedback were found. The present study suggested that the elderly subjects made a very similar use of the available sensory information as young subjects under restricted visual feedback conditions. In addition, during the pointing movement, information about the hand's movement was more useful than information about the target location for young and elderly subjects.
