Control Testing in Studies of the Effects of Dry Immersion on Motor–Ocular Task Performance
摘要
The effects of support unloading, as well as tactile and proprioceptive afferentation, on joystick control during a visual-motor task were assessed in a group of 14 female volunteers. The aim was to compare performance in a 15-min—visual-motor task under conditions of Dry immersion and in a supine position on a couch. Volunteers were required to move a pointer from the center of the screen to one of the eight randomly presented targets. Pointer coordinates and target presentation sequences were recorded, and the time required to reach the target and the geometry of the pointer trajectories were calculated. The analysis was based on four characteristics: reaction latency, movement time, relative trajectory length, and mean directional accuracy relative to the target, as well as across all targets. It was found that, despite individual variability, these four characteristics were essentially similar across all volunteers, both for movements toward individual targets and for the aggregated set of targets. The results support the applicability of control tests under conditions of support (supine) as control data in Dry immersion experiments aimed at determining whether support unloading affects the efficiency of goal-directed manual movements.