Structure of variability in scanning movement predicts braille reading performance in children

Tetsushi Nonaka,Kiyohide Ito,Thomas A Stoffregen

doi:10.1038/s41598-021-86674-5

Tetsushi Nonaka, Kiyohide Ito + Show 1 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-86674-5

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Abstract

Among children learning to read braille, we asked whether the quantitative kinematics of scanning movements of the reading finger would be related to the proficiency of braille reading. Over a period of 12 months, we recorded the position and orientation of the reading fingers of eight congenitally or early blind children. We found that the strength of long-range power-law temporal correlations in the velocity fluctuations increased with performance in braille reading. In addition, we found that the variability of the angular orientation of the reading finger that affects the contact region on the fingerpad was negatively related to braille reading performance. These results confirm that the quantitative kinematics of finger scanning movements were related to functional performance in braille reading. The results add to the growing body of evidence that long-range temporal correlations in exploratory behavior can predict perceptual performance, and that scanning movements that center important tactile information on the small, high resolution area contribute to the pickup of information.

Highlights

Among children learning to read braille, we asked whether the quantitative kinematics of scanning movements of the reading finger would be related to the proficiency of braille reading
We focused on two aspects of the structure of variability that have not been evaluated in previous research: [1] the temporal correlation structures of the velocity variation of the reading finger, and [2] variability in the orientation of the reading finger, which reflects the orientation of the fingerpad to the braille dots
We asked whether kinematic characteristics of scanning movements of the reading finger might be related to the function of braille reading

Summary

Introduction

Among children learning to read braille, we asked whether the quantitative kinematics of scanning movements of the reading finger would be related to the proficiency of braille reading. One aspect of braille reading that has gained increasing attention concerns the quantitative details of finger movements in scanning This area of research has been transformed as technology has made it possible to examine behavior in greater and greater detail. Previous studies of finger kinematics in braille reading have focused on linear measures derived from spatial position, such as mean velocity and mean squared deviation from the average computed over a single, chosen time scale. Previous studies of finger kinematics in braille reading have focused on linear measures derived from spatial position, such as mean velocity and mean squared deviation from the average computed over a single, chosen time scale22,23 In those studies, fluctuations in finger movement were interpreted as noise in the neuromuscular system. We asked whether and how the kinematics of finger movement would change over time as children learned to read braille

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