Proprioception does not quickly drift during visual occlusion.
Exp Brain Res. 2000-07-25; 134(3): 363-377
DOI: 10.1007/s002210000473
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https://www.bordeaux-neurocampus.fr/12306
1. Exp Brain Res. 2000 Oct;134(3):363-77. doi: 10.1007/s002210000473.
Proprioception does not quickly drift during visual occlusion.
Desmurget M(1), Vindras P, Gréa H, Viviani P, Grafton ST.
Author information:
(1)Department of Neurology, Emory University School of Medicine, Atlanta, GA
30322, USA.
Several perceptual studies have shown that the ability to estimate the location
of the arm degrades quickly during visual occlusion. To account for this effect,
it has been suggested that proprioception drifts when not continuously
calibrated by vision. In the present study, we re-evaluated this hypothesis by
isolating the proprioceptive component of position sense (i.e., the subjects
were forced to rely exclusively on proprioception to locate their hand, which
was not the case in earlier studies). Three experiments were conducted. In
experiment 1, subjects were required to estimate the location of their unseen
right hand, at rest, using a visual spot controlled by the left hand through a
joystick. Results showed that the mean accuracy was identical whether the
localization task was performed immediately after the positioning of the hand or
after a 10-s delay. In experiments 2 and 3, subjects were required to point,
without vision of their limb, to visual targets. These two experiments relied on
the demonstration that biases in the perception of the initial hand location
induced systematic variations of the movement characteristics (initial
direction, final accuracy, end-point variability). For these motor tasks, the
subjects did not pay attention to the initial hand location, which removed the
possible occurrence of confounding cognitive strategies. Results indicated that
movement characteristics were, on average, not affected when a 15-s or 20-s
delay was introduced between the positioning of the arm at the starting point
and the presentation of the target. When considered together, our results
suggest that proprioception does not quickly drift in the absence of visual
information. The potential origin of the discrepancy between our results and
earlier studies is discussed.
DOI: 10.1007/s002210000473
PMID: 11045361 [Indexed for MEDLINE]