Development of a quantitative evaluation system for visuo-motor control in three-dimensional virtual reality space

Woong Choi,Liang Li,Naoki Yanagihara,Jongho Lee,Jaehyo Kim

doi:10.1038/s41598-018-31758-y

Abstract

The process of learning a human’s movement and motor control mechanisms by watching and mimicking human motions was based on visuo-motor control in three dimensional space. However, previous studies regarding the visuo-motor control in three dimensional space have focused on analyzing the tracking tasks along one-dimensional lines or two-dimensional planes using single or multi-joint movements. Therefore, in this study, we developed a new system to quantitatively evaluate visuo-motor control in three-dimensional space based on virtual reality (VR) environment. Our proposed system is designed to analyze circular tracking movements on frontal and sagittal planes in VR space with millimeter level accuracy. In particular, we compared the circular tracking movements under monocular and binocular vision conditions. The results showed that the accuracy of circular tracking movements drops approximately 4.5 times in monocular vision than that in binocular vision on both frontal and sagittal planes. We also found that significant difference can be observed between frontal and sagittal planes for only the accuracy of X-axis in both monocular and binocular visions.

Highlights

Visually-guided tracking movements are important in visuo-motor control tasks such as imitation learning of using tools, dance, and sports
Anglin et al investigated the mechanisms of visuo-motor adaptation in head-mounted virtual reality versus conventional training[17]
We quantitatively evaluated visuo-motor control in circular tracking movements by analyzing distance errors in the three-dimensional virtual reality (VR) space between the target and the tracer

Summary

Introduction

Visually-guided tracking movements are important in visuo-motor control tasks such as imitation learning of using tools, dance, and sports. Beppu et al.[4,5] analyzed motor controls along ramp trajectories of patients with cerebellar ataxia and normal subjects in one degree-of-freedom elbow movement tracking tasks They extracted parameters which could quantitatively evaluate disease severity. Studies examined two-dimensional visually-guided tracking movements by carrying out wrist and hand tracking movement tasks using pen tablets, two-dimensional tracers (i.g. computer mouses), and two-dimensional manipulanda. Anglin et al investigated the mechanisms of visuo-motor adaptation in head-mounted virtual reality versus conventional training[17] They constructed a three-dimensional experimental environment that allowed two-dimensional circular tracking movements. A digitalized pen with a tablet was used as the tracer to measure the hand movements They has not been adopted and analyzed the circular tracking movements in a three-dimensional VR environment. The target can be tracked by arm movements in a three-dimensional coordinate. (3) Tracer’s movements can be precisely measured and quantitatively evaluated

Methods

Results

Conclusion