P-33　The effects of distraction task and initial joint angle time in a joint position matching task

Abstract

Proprioception is a sense that can detect the position and movement of one’s own body parts. It is not only essential in the effective interaction with the outside world, but also critical in the situation that bodily movements need to be made in the absence of vision. A joint position matching is a method to evaluate the proprioceptive acuity. In a joint position matching task, subjects should replicate a reference joint angle without the aid of vision, only relying on the proprioceptive information. Then, spatial error between the reference and the matching movement is measured. This study investigates the effect of a distraction task and initial joint angle time on the accuracy of an elbow joint position matching task. An experiment was designed and conducted and twelve participants voluntarily participated in the experiment. In the conditions with distraction tasks, the participants were requested to solve simple calculation problems when they were holding the initial joint angle waiting for the onset of the replication signal. The time for holding the initial joint angle was manipulated as 0s, 5s, 10s, and 15s. The results showed that the accuracy of the joint position matching decreased as the initial joint angle time increased. In addition, the effect of distraction task and the interaction between the two factors were significant, showing degraded performance with the presence of the distraction task in most initial joint angle time conditions. A further study is suggested to investigate the effects of different types of distracting tasks in an experiment with a larger scale.