Position sense at the human forearm over a range of elbow angles

Ten adult participants carried out two experiments on position sense at the forearm, one a two-arm matching task, the other a one-arm pointing task. For matching, both forearms were strapped to paddles which moved in the vertical plane between 0° and 90°. At the start of each trial, the arms were conditioned with a contraction sequence to control for the thixotropic property of muscle and muscle spindles. In the matching task, the blindfolded participant moved their indicator arm from 45° into flexion or extension to match the position of the reference arm placed at one of five test angles, between 5° and 85°. In the pointing task, only the reference arm was strapped to a paddle and conditioned. Participants indicated the position of the arm, hidden by a screen, by moving a pointer paddle or choosing one of a series of trajectory lines drawn on the screen. In matching, where test angles were in the direction of flexion of 45°, errors were small; in the direction of extension larger errors were made, up to 8° into flexion. In pointing trials, except at the most extended position, all errors lay in the direction of extension. It is argued that position sense by matching is concerned with the relative positions of the body and its parts, position sense by pointing gives information about position of the body and limbs in external space.