The supplementation of spatial information improves coordination

Abstract

Vision plays an important role in allowing the development of coordinated movements and often acts as the dominant perceptual modality for every day movements. This visual information is often presented in the spatio-temporal domain but the specific role of spatio-temporal information has not been specifically assessed in the literature. This experiment used two visual stimuli to assess the reliance on spatio-temporal integration and the effect of supplementing spatial information to a temporal stimulus on coordination. Participants manipulated a hand held pendulum at three frequencies in coordination with these stimuli. The results revealed that the supplementation of spatial information significantly improved coordination. Interestingly, the absence of spatial information still produced good levels of coordination indicating a resilience of motor coordination to adapt to changes in the environment.