Designing and Analyzing In-Place Motor Tasks in Virtual Reality With Goal Functions.

ABSTRACT: Goal functions make virtual goal-oriented motor tasks easier to analyze and manipulate by explicitly linking movement to outcome. However, they have only been used to study constrained (e.g., planar) upper limb movements. We present a design framework for integrating goal functions with unconstrained postural and upper limb movements in a virtual reality (VR) device. VR tasks designed with the framework can mimic unconstrained natural motions and thus train a range of functional movements yet remain analytically tractable. We created three in-place VR motor tasks: a bow-and-arrow, a reach-and-strike, and a punching bag task. Each task was adjusted to subject-specific workspace limits and anthropometrics. We studied the effects of 3 days of practice and 3 reach/lean distances on task perfor

SUBMITTER: Carrera RM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11492765 | biostudies-literature | 2024

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature