Reliability and validity of a mobile tablet for assessing left/right judgements

Area of Science:

• Neuroscience
• Cognitive Psychology
• Human Factors Engineering

Background:

• Left/right body part judgment (LRJ) assesses implicit motor imagery and brain-body map integrity.
• Clinical LRJ assessments often use mobile tablets, but their validity and reliability are unestablished.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate the concurrent validity of a mobile tablet for LRJ compared to a desktop computer.
• To assess the test-retest reliability of the mobile tablet for LRJ.

Main Methods:

• Participants performed LRJ on hand, back, foot, and neck images using both mobile tablet and desktop interfaces.
• Experiment 2 included a repeat test the next day to determine test-retest reliability.
• Accuracy and response times were recorded for all judgments.

Main Results:

• The mobile tablet demonstrated good to excellent concurrent validity with desktop LRJ assessments (ICC values ranging from 0.781 to 0.909).
• Test-retest reliability for the mobile tablet was also good to excellent (ICC values from 0.824 to 0.903).
• Results were consistent across hand, back, foot, and neck judgments.

Conclusions:

• Mobile tablets are valid and reliable tools for LRJ assessments.
• The mobile tablet serves as a viable alternative to desktop versions for clinical and research purposes.
• This validates mobile tablet use in evaluating motor imagery and body schema integrity.